News

UK accident investigators have called for hazardous cargo on ships to be more tightly regulated following the deaths of two seamen on a vessel banned from carrying the ferrous metal turnings cargo that probably killed them.

The two men suffocated when oxygen levels dropped in a storage area of their vessel, the Sava Lake, in the Straits of Dover in January this year.

The ship was diverted to Dover after the two bodies were found on January 18 at the bottom of the access ladder inside the forward store.

The investigators' report said the turnings were liable to self-heat and therefore there was a possibility of the cargo hold's oxygen levels dropping.

The ship's master had received conflicting information about the properties of the metal before it was loaded, they said.