A dislodged anchor from a Chinese cargo vessel is believed to have caused damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, prompting an investigation involving the ship Newnew Polar Bear and a seabed trail.

A Chinese container ship’s dislodged anchor caused damage to a Baltic Sea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, Finnish police believe.

The Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel Newnew Polar Bear is responsible for the damage earlier this month to the undersea Balticconnector pipeline spanning the Gulf of Finland, said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), citing evidence and data.

Investigators said the Finnish navy has retrieved an anchor from the location where the pipeline ruptured on 8 October, and they were investigating whether it belonged to the Chinese vessel.

    • teeps@feddit.ukEnglish
      143·
      1 year ago

      The coincidence is that’s not the only pipeline that’s been damaged by a surprisingly large anchor recently. Given that the pipeline routes are on the maritime charts and at least some of these have happened in places where you would not expect ships to be anchoring to avoid this sort of thing it doesn’t seem plausible to me that this is all accidental.

      • Lath@kbin.social
        203·
        1 year ago

        Chinese boats are known to not give a floating fuck about anything in international waters.

        • Magrath@lemmy.caEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          Apparently the anchor has been dragging for miles before it hit the pipeline. They may not have known they were dragging. Or it was an elaborate plan. Never know until they question the crew, which they haven’t been able to contact.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    1 year ago

    I’m curious. What happened to the Polar Bear, and the New Polar Bear that we have a ship called the New New Polar Bear?

    Or is Newnew the name of the company?

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    A Chinese container ship’s dislodged anchor caused damage to a Baltic Sea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, Finnish police believe.

    The Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel Newnew Polar Bear is responsible for the damage earlier this month to the undersea Balticconnector pipeline spanning the Gulf of Finland, said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), citing evidence and data.

    On 8 October, Finnish and Estonian gas system operators observed a significant pressure drop in the pipeline, leading to it being shut down.

    Recent social media images of the Chinese vessel, which stopped at the port of St Petersburg in Russia during its Baltic Sea journey, displayed the absence of one of its anchors.

    Despite multiple attempts to reach the ship’s captain, Finnish investigators have been unable to establish contact and are currently collaborating with Chinese authorities regarding the matter.

    Meanwhile, a Finland-Estonia and Sweden-Estonia telecom cable was damaged at the same time as the pipeline, with Finnish authorities indicating a connection to the Chinese vessel.

    The original article contains 460 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!