cargo | Giustizia per Norman Atlantic

In the night between August the 28th and the 29th 2018 the ship Eleftherios Venizelos, another ferry from Anek Lines, during its travel from Piraeus to Crete with 875 passengers and 141 crew on board, was hit by a serious fire in the garage area, so much that the Captain was forced to declare general emergency and abandonment of the ship.

The emergency operations were not easy and implied the intervent of two firefighting tug boats, ten tenders, 48 firefighters and two emergency teams, as the fire was very quickly expanding from the lower decks and heavy black smoke was inclosing the ship.

The dynamic of the new accident is similar to the disaster of the Norman Atlantic, which as this one, was operating under the flag of the Greek company ANEK: a vehicle parked on board caught fire so that from 12am the board started to send emergency signals to get help from the Coast Guard.

After we assisted dozens of passengers who suffered a devastating experience onboard of the Anek’s ferry Norman Atlantic in the nights of the 28/29 December 2014 where so many lost their life, an all others suffered for their personal safety and for the losses of their personal belongings and for which we already submitted to the Civil Court of Bari our law suit against Anek and Visemar (see our web page on such case: https://giustiziapernormanatlantic.wordpress.com/), we face another case with a fire that broke out in the car deck of a ferry.

The emergency operations on the Eleftherios Venizelos went on during all night and the ship was at the end escorted back into Piraeus and all the passengers were disambarked only during the morning of the 29 August.

Media sources report that the ship has had many problems operating so much that since 2014 it has a discontinuous use, with some short-term rentals (including one to the Greek government for the transportation of migrants from the islands) and sporadic income in service as a replace of other ships Anek stopped for repairs. This raises questions in relation to safety of the ship. These questions will be adressed by with a specific complaint we will file to authorities that have already opened an investigation to find out the causes of the fire and the reasons for the lack of containment of the flames in the garage by the drenching system, providing all the trial expert’s reports on Norman Atlantic about critical issues on fires in Ro/Ro ship’s garage open decks. Continua a leggere →

The end of the seizure for 26 trucks, cargo and commercial vehicles escaped from the flames but blocked in Bari for over a year in the Norman Atlantic lower deck, and then after the unloading last week, immediately placed under seizure for the debts (about 2 million euro) unpaid by Visemar (owner of the ship) to the maritime rescue company (the Fratelli Barretta of Brindisi), is near, after a legal dispute between the carrier and the maritime rescue company. A settlement agreement between the parties has just been found, and then decays the reason that led to the seizure of all that was transported in the garage of the ship, including trucks, which at this point can be freed and returned to their rightful owners, mainly greek.

UPDATE 13.04.2016: the lawyers representing the tug boat company have informed that they renounced the seizure after a signed agreement with the Greek company Anek, charterer of the ferry.

Il dissequestro dei 26 TIR e veicoli industriali scampati alle fiamme ma bloccati per oltre un anno nei garage del Norman Atlantic, e poi dopo lo sbarco nelle settimane scorse, posti sotto sequestro conservativo a Bari per i debiti (circa due milioni di euro) non pagati da Visemar (proprietaria della nave) alla società di salvataggio marittimo (la Fratelli Barretta di Brindisi), è vicino, dopo una vertenza giudiziaria tra il vettore e la società di salvataggio marittimo. Un accordo transattivo fra le parti è appena stato trovato, e quindi decade il motivo che aveva portato al sequestro conservativo di tutto ciò che era trasportato nei garage della nave, compresi i camion, che a questo punto possono essere liberati e restituiti ai legittimi proprietari, in gran parte greci.

AGGIORNAMENTO 13.04.2016: i legali della società di traghettatori hanno fatto sapere di aver rinunciato agli effetti del sequestro dopo un accordo sottoscritto con la società greca Anek, noleggiatrice del traghetto.