Latest news with #Coastguard
The Independent
19 hours ago
- General
- The Independent
Fire rages on cargo ship with smoke and ‘burning plastic' smell engulfing Hull
Firefighters are tackling a massive blaze onboard a cargo ship docked in Hull. Humberside Fire and Rescue Service was called to Albert Dock at around 10am on Friday. The service deployed four fire engines and an aerial platform. Hull Coastguard Rescue Team and an ambulance are also at the scene. The fire began in the vessel's cargo hold, where scrap metal was being transported. All people on board have been accounted for, a fire service spokesperson said. Residents and businesses have been advised to keep their windows and doors closed due to the smoke in the area. One local said the 'smell of burning plastic is very strong'. The council has closed several roads as firefighters attempt to extinguish the blaze. This includes Commercial Road, Kingston Retail Park, Odeon Cinema, Ice Arena, English Street, Jackson Street, Humber Dock Street and Wellington Street. A BBC reporter identified the ship as the Altay, a bulk carrier built in 2006. According to Vessel Finder, the Atlay is currently sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands and has been moored at Albert Dock since 23 June. Commenting on social media, local residents said it 'absolutely stinks'. Another user commented: "I've been smelling every plug socket and computer at work, wondering if it's in my building. I hope everyone is okay on the docks." "I've just had to close all my windows. Wondered what the burning smell was,' another said. An Associated British Ports spokesperson said: 'We are currently aware of a fire on a vessel in Albert Dock in the location of a tenanted area, and we are assisting the fire service with the response.'
The Sun
20 hours ago
- General
- The Sun
Blaze tears through huge container ship at UK dock sending smoke billowing into sky as locals told ‘keep windows SHUT'
FIREFIGHTERS are tackling a blaze which has engulfed a container ship moored in a UK dock. Shocking pictures show smoke filling the sky after the vessel - carrying scrap metal - caught fire just after 10am this morning in Albert Dock, Hull. 2 Four fire engines, the coastguard and an ambulance scrambled to tackle the blaze, with all crew accounted for. Humberside Fire and Rescue were called to the scene at 10:22am It was carrying scrap metal before the fire started in the cargo hold. Some crewmembers were still onboard the ship, but they have since all been accounted for. Hull Coastguard Rescue Team and an ambulance are also in attendance. A BBC reporter identified the ship as the Altay - a bulk carrier built in 2006. An ABP spokesperson said: "We are currently aware of a fire on a vessel in Albert Dock in the location of a tenanted area, and we are assisting the fire service with the response." Hull City Council has confirmed that Commercial Road, Kingston Street, and shops on Kingston Retail Park have been closed due to the incident. 2
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
New Coastguard boat arrives
Riverton Coastguard skipper and chairman Ross McKenzie (left) and Gough Bros manager Nick Morris with the new Coastguard boat behind them. PHOTO: TONI MCDONALD After seven years, Riverton's Coastguard skipper and chairman Ross McKenzie yesterday drove the new $1 millionrescue boat home, ready for its launch in August. But filling it with 700 litres of fuel was the first stop before tucking it into its purpose-built shed. The Riverton crew will take the boat through sea trials before its official launch on Riverton's high tide on August 16. The vessel replaces the 25-year-old 8.5m Naiad, also called the Russell John Chisholm, named after a 7-year-old boy whose body was never found after a Cessna carrying 10 passengers plunged into Foveaux Strait in 1998. Built by Gough Bros in Invercargill, the 10m hard-top Naiad is powered by twin V6 350 Yamaha outboard engines and equipped with autopilot search patterns, a Forward Looking Infrared thermal image camera and night-vision cameras. — Toni McDonald
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Govt invests $76.7m in search and rescue
Associate Minister of Transport James Meager announces $76.7 million of funding for 12 search and rescue organisations at Coastguard's Dunedin base yesterday. He is flanked by Dunedin Coastguard president Blair Olsen (left), Dunedin Land Search and Rescue chairman Ben Mulvey and local search and rescue workers. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY More than $70 million in government search and rescue investment will help organisations continue to save lives, Dunedin groups say. At the Dunedin Coastguard building yesterday, Associate Minister of Transport James Meager announced a further $76.7m in funding for New Zealand Search and Rescue, over three years and shared across 12 organisations, including Land Search and Rescue ($30.1m), Coastguard NZ ($11.3m) and the New Zealand Aviation Federation ($542,000). Mr Meager said the funding was an investment in safety and efficiency for search and rescue teams. "Alongside the clear benefits for New Zealanders' health and safety while they get out and explore, this package highlights the government's commitment to helping grow our economy by supporting a safe and secure recreational aviation system," he said. "Fundamentally, it's my hope that announcements like these will help everyone to keep safe when they're outdoors, whether that's on the land, in the water or in the air." The funding was based on excise payments from recreational boats and aircraft users. Dunedin Coastguard president Blair Olsen said the funding would help provide personal protective equipment such as immersion suits or emergency position-indicating radio beacons. "Anything that helps a volunteer go out on to the water, keep them safe and bring the people back to shore safely as well." Dunedin LandSAR chairman Ben Mulvey said the funding would allow standardised equipment for groups across the country. "Previously, equipment had been funded individually, and as a volunteer, there's other demands in your life between time and money that allow the ability to volunteer. "Having this equipment funded is one less barrier to entry for our volunteers." LandSAR chief development and project officer Johnny Franklin said the funding demonstrated the government's confidence and trust in the organisation and its volunteers. "And our ability to continue to deliver the professional level [of] services to the missing, injured and lost, not only today, but more importantly, into the future."
Telegraph
4 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
‘I earn £34k to make life or death decisions as a coastguard'
'The secret life of…' pulls back the curtain on professions you've always wanted to know more about. If you want to anonymously reveal all about your job, email money@ Coastguard shifts can go very quickly from zero to 100. You might spend hours doing routine tasks, with no emergencies. But then, when the calls come in, it's all hands on deck. You often get two or three or even 10 incidents all at the same time, so you have to prioritise them. I've been doing this job for over a decade. I lead a small team of officers who receive the emergency calls. My role is to determine the severity of the situation and then to plan and coordinate the response – tasking the lifeboats, helicopters or rescue teams. You sometimes have to be creative to locate a vessel, which is daunting when dealing with people's lives. What surprises most people is how much of our work involves suicide or attempted suicide. It makes up the largest percentage of all incident types. It's something we see almost every single day, or even multiple times a day. Otherwise, we deal with anything from a major maritime disaster (thankfully, these are rare), or a missing child, through to somebody who has twisted their ankle on a cliff path. We're particularly busy in the summer, at weekends and on public holidays. Sometimes the good weather seems to encourage some people to mix drinking alcohol with taking risks at the coast, which is not a good combination. Drunken swims often don't end well. A lot goes through your mind during the high-stakes rescues. In most scenarios, I will devise a plan A, B, and even C. Then I'll decide which one to go with (though I'll normally spend the next few hours doubting my decision, hoping I picked the right one). Thankfully, to date, I have. Often, it'll be apparent from the outset that the people involved will not survive. Occasionally, though, you get a happy surprise. I've had times when it seemed that all hope was lost, but you just keep going and going, and then suddenly you'll hear from the helicopter radio that they've located the person in the water – and they're alive. Those incidents are the ones that you remember. It makes you want to keep searching. We're lucky in the UK – we have a lot of lifeboats, helicopters and rescue coordination centres, all the way from the Shetland Islands to Cornwall. We also have a relatively large number of Coastguard officers on at any one time. That said, most people underestimate how long a rescue team can take to reach them. A lifeboat normally launches within 10 or 15 minutes, as does a helicopter (at least during the daytime). But they still have to travel to the location. Whereas a person can drown in less than a minute. Another thing a lot of the public don't know – and a good safety message – is 'if you see someone in trouble at the coast, dial 999 and ask for the coastguard' (you'd be amazed how many still ask for the police). The most common misconception is that the Coastguard and the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) are the same organisation. We're not. The Coastguard is a state function, like the police, who coordinate the rescues. But the RNLI is an independent charity that provides the rescue boats, made up mostly of (unpaid) volunteers. We work very closely together, but we're not the same. People also think the Coastguard does customs work, but the focus is on search and rescue, counter-pollution and traffic monitoring. The Coastguard has had quite a high turnover of staff over the past decade. Some people find the hours difficult – we do four 12-hour shifts in a row, then four days off, part of which is spent sleeping and recovering from the jet lag-inducing night shift. Others find the nature of the work difficult. However, that has meant that for those of us who have stayed, there's been good promotion opportunities, and we've progressed fairly quickly. In terms of salary, an entry-level officer will earn about £25,000 a year plus £7,500 in allowances for working anti-social hours, rising up to £34,000 plus allowances for team leaders like me. That's the same nationally, with the exception of London, so those salaries go a lot further in some parts of the UK than in others. As civil servants, we're also part of the government pension scheme, which is pretty generous, with employer contributions at around 28pc. To thrive in this job, you have to be fairly mentally robust and able to detach yourself. Some of the emergency calls that we receive can be fairly distressing – people on the other end of the phone will be having just about the worst day of their life, and it's essential that we remain calm, logical and professional. I think we are probably fairly paid compared with the other emergency services. Although it can be high intensity for short periods, generally we are a lot quieter than the ambulance or police, taking a very small number of calls compared to them. You can't really prepare mentally for emergencies. But you do get used to it. We decompress as a team, sometimes joking about incidents in ways we wouldn't in public. Even though we're fairly detached from the danger as Coastguard officers, these can be intense emotional moments that stick in your memory if you don't learn to cope. Still, the job isn't all drama; we actually spend the most time on routine tasks. Every three hours we broadcast the weather to vessels on the radio, very much like the BBC Radio 4 shipping forecast. That can be pretty dull. Also, there's quite a lot of paperwork that comes after every incident which we coordinate – including when we get malicious fake calls. We get the occasional hoax call. It seems the objective is usually to get a large-scale search response. While it may be exciting to watch a helicopter or a lifeboat search through rough seas, what these people don't understand is the immense risk the crews of that aircraft and boat are putting themselves at. My biggest nightmare is a hoax call ending in an accident for a rescue unit. Search and rescue is intrinsically dangerous for those who carry it out. It would be a tragedy if a false distress call ended in the death or injury of a responder. I was attracted to the service by the variety that the role offered. I'm somebody who doesn't like every day to be the same, and that's certainly the case here. I was also attracted by the relative ease of joining; there are no minimum qualifications or requirements. Cliché as it may sound, I also wanted to help people, and that is literally the point of what we do, every day. This job has definitely changed how I view the sea and how people engage with it. Before I started with the Coastguard, I used to think that scuba diving looked like a fun activity. Now I think it looks incredibly dangerous and I wouldn't want to do it. It's amazing how quickly scuba diving can go wrong for somebody. You could extend that to a lot of water-based recreational activities. Most of the people we rescue have ended up in the water with no intention of entering it – through an accident or through negligence. The most important thing is that people educate themselves about the risks. Those who grew up (or live) by the coast understand the dangers, but many inland visitors don't. What may look like an inviting and enjoyable place to swim may have dangerous undercurrents or tidal rips. The sea is a risky environment, and it's relentless – it takes no prisoners.
