A sea container which fell off a Finnish freighter into the Baltic Sea off the Swedish coast on Saturday night contained 19 tonnes of raw material for the manufacture of washing agents.
Two of the substances were liquid and the third was a powder. The chemicals were packed separately.
According toHelena Kuronen, spokeswoman for the company Containerships, the substances do not pose a serious threat to the environment. Risto Repo of the Accident Investigation Board of Finland says that the danger cannot be assessed before the amount and chemical composition of the substances are better known.
“The raw materials of detergents can be dangerous in larger amounts when they go into the food chain”, he notes.
Three containers fell into the sea on Saturday off the deck of the Finnish container vessel Linda as she was sailing south of the island of Gotland. The accident happened when the lowest of four containers collapsed.
The Swedish Coast Guard was looking for the containers with helicopters, but to no avail. The containers are believed to have sunk once the air leaked out.
The chemicals might stay inside the container and the packaging for a longer period of time.
According to the ship’s captain, the lowest of the containers was rusty, and it had dents.
The collapsed container had been with Containerships since 2000. It is not known if the necessary periodic inspections had been conducted, as is required every 2.5 years.
Repo says that a container can also collapse if the containers placed on top of it are packed in the wrong way.
Officials in Russia inspected the Linda at Kronstadt harbour outside St. Petersburg on Monday. The vessel is scheduled to sail for Helsinki on Tuesday, and officials of the Finnish Accident Investigation Board are to inspect it.
Containers containing hazardous chemicals carry warning signs indicating the classification of the substances inside.
However, they do not indicate the precise content.
