A cargo ship, reportedly carrying thousands of vehicles, including luxury cars like Porsches, caught fire and was seen drifting off the coast of the Azores on Thursday, 17 February.
As many as 22 crew members were rescued from the mammoth ship.
The Portuguese navy, on its Twitter handle, informed that it had "safely rescued the crew of a burning merchant ship in the Azores."
Reportedly, the fire broke out on Wednesday, 16 February, on the ship called 'Felicity Ace', which was en route to Rhodes Island, Greece, from Emden, Germany.
The ship was nearly 200 miles away from the coast of Terceira Island in the Azores – a Portuguese territory – when the Portuguese forces evacuated the crew on Wednesday. No fatality or injury was reported during this operation.
1,100 Porsches and 4,000 Volkswagen Cars Aboard
According to reports, the Volkswagen Group estimated around 4,000 of their vehicles on board, including 189 Bentleys.
It is still unclear how much of the 650-feet, 60,000-tonne cargo ship's load has been engulfed by fire.
Mitsui OSK Lines, which operated the ship, said that it had established an incident response team to coordinate the emergency and would "make every effort to contain the damage and resolve the situation," reported The New York Times.
A spokeswoman for Porsche Cars informed the NYT that 1,100 of the company’s cars were on board. However, the company has not yet ascertained the damage caused to the vehicles.
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