Cruise Ship Fire in Norway Kills Two

The Associated Press is reporting that a fire on the M/S Nordlys cruise ship this morning killed two people and injured at least nine others while operating on a popular route along Norway's coast. The AP reports that nine people were taken to the hospital, two with serious burns and smoke injuries. Eight of those injured and sent to the hospital were crew members. Mail Online reports that 16 people were injured and two additional people (probably crewmembers) are missing. The fire broke out in the engine room. The Nordlys, operated by Hurtigruten, reportedly had over 200 passengers on board at the time of the fire. 100 passengers were evacuated by lifeboats before the cruise ship reached port in Alesund, which is 230 miles northwest of Oslo. The cruise ship was then escorted into port where the remainder of the passengers were evacuated. The cruise line has an information link on its website which can be viewed here. The only information posted is as follows: "Following a fire on board the MS Nordlys all guests have been safely evacuated to the Rica Parken Hotel in Ă…lesund. There were 207 guests on board of varying nationalities and 55 crew. Relatives hotline: +47 47 83 47 00." If this information is correct, all of the injuries and deaths involved crewmembers. Cruise ship fires are not as uncommon as you may think. Take a moment and read Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires – Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything? The last engine room fire on a cruise ship occurred last year on the Carnival Splendor, resulting the stranding of over 3,000 passengers and over 1,000 crewmembers. Last year, an engine room fire caused the evacuation of over 600 passengers and crew in Norwegian waters. That incident involved the German cruise ship Deutschland. After the Nordlys reached port the ship continued to burn, as show in the video below. Video credit: TV2 Norway via CNN

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