A fire blazed on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles Wednesday off the Dutch coast, which has resulted in the death of an Indian seafarer while other crew members have sustained injuries. Several crew members jumped off board to save their lives after the fire began on Tuesday night. The 655-foot Panama-registered ship ‘Fremantle Highway’ was en route to Germany from Egypt.

The Indian embassy in the Netherlands confirmed that an Indian seafarer had been killed in the fire and that other crew members had sustained injuries. The embassy added it was in touch with the family of the deceased crew member. The ship is owned by Japan’s Shoei Kisen. It said that the entire crew of 21 was Indian.

While the coastguard on its website said that the cause of the fire was unknown, a coastguard spokesperson told Reuters that the fire began near an electric car. The Reuters report said that 25 of the vehicles onboard were electric.

The coastguard said that the rescue ships sprayed water onto the vessel but a lot of water risked the ship’s sinking. The cargo ship was attached to a salvage vessel to prevent it from drifting.

Dutch news agency ANP has reported that the fire might last for several days.”The fire is most definitely still not controlled. It’s a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch Department of Waterways and Public Works.

Around 350 of the vehicles on board were Mercedes-Benz cars.

What happened to crew members?

Fremantle was about 27 kilomteres north of Ameland when the fire started, as per the coastguard. As the fire spread quickly, seven crew members jumped off board, said Willard Molenaar of the Royal Dutch Rescue Company (KNRM), who was among the first at the scene. Some members of the crew were injured after they jumped overboard.

“There was [a] lot of smoke and the fire spread quickly, much faster than expected…The people on board had to get off quickly…We fished them out of the water,” he said. The remaining crew was airlifted off the ship by a helicopter. The injured were being treated for breathing problems, burns and broken bones, local Dutch authorities said.

(With inputs from Reuters)