Fires blaze aboard ships; tanker leak plugged

TOKYO -- Fires were blazing aboard two freighters in Asian waters Tuesday, outside Tokyo and Hong Kong, while Chinese authorities said they finally plugged an oil tanker leak that left an oil slick on miles of the mainland's coastal waters.

In Japan, a grounded freighter carrying nearly 4,000 vehicles was blazing out of control near Izu-Oshima, an island about 80 miles south of Tokyo. Billowing smoke and the threat of explosion from the 56,835-ton Hual Europe forced dozens of people on shore nearby to be evacuated.

The ship also spilled 106,000 gallons of oil, and the Japanese Coast Guard said Tuesday evening it was beginning a clean up. The Coast Guard did not say how big the slick was, but media reports estimated it at 1 mile long and 32 feet wide.

The Bahamian-registered ship ran aground off shore during an early October typhoon. The 24 crew members were rescued Oct. 2, and the cause of the fire was not known, said Coast Guard spokesman Kenichi Sasaki.

No injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, a fire aboard an abandoned tanker off Hong Kong appeared to be dying down Tuesday and was not threatening to ignite its cargo of 20,000 tons of highly volatile liquefied petroleum gas, a Hong Kong marine official said.

Capt. Ravi Dewan, head of the Hong Kong Maritime Search and Rescue Center, said officials in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen had dispatched 12 vessels to monitor the blaze, which caught fire late Saturday night.

The Gaz Poem tanker, which left Hong Kong for a mainland Chinese port last week, was moored about 30 miles south of Daya Bay, southern China.

In the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, authorities finally plugged an oil leak aboard a Maltese-registered tanker that left a slick on the Bohai Sea, state media in Beijing said.