Scrap workers have started a fire on a car carrier stuck in the Philippines for nearly four years since a previous blaze and then a grounding.
The Philippine Coast Guard said the latest fire in the fore part of the 6,400-ceu Diamond Highway (built 2004) began on Friday after workers started to cut metal from the vessel on the shore at Lapu-Lapu City.
All personnel working on the recycling operations were safely evacuated from the Diamond Highway, the Coast Guard added.
A Coast Guard tug responded to the incident, which began at 14:20 local time.
The blaze was the second to hit the ship, which was abandoned in 2019 after a fire off Recto Bank in the Philippines.
TradeWinds reported that at that point, the Diamond Highway was chartered by K Line of Japan.
K Line said all crew members were safely disembarked from the vessel onto a passing bulker heading to Thailand.
The car carrier was taken under tow by the Philippine Coast Guard to Cebu.
It had been en route from Singapore to Batangas.
The Diamond Highway was declared a constructive total loss.
Then in December 2021, it was one of more than 100 ships that sank or ran aground during Typhoon Rai. More than 400 people were killed in the storm.
The owner was listed as Diamond Car Carriers.
