Today at around 10:00 a.m. six tugboats managed to successfully pull the stuck Sea Land Meteor container ship back to deeper waters.
Five hours earlier, at 5 am local time, the stormy weather caused the 273 -metre containership to run aground off Flushing while en route from Rotterdam to Antwerp. The initial attempt of the crew to stabilize the ship by dropping the anchors turned out to be unsuccessful and Sea Land Meteor got stuck some 100 m off shore very close to the Damen Shiprepair Vlissingen.
Due to strong winds, at the time of the refloating attempt, the water had made its way back into the Wester Sheldt which made it possible for the appointed teams to carry out the operation. The dike was cordoned off by police officials during the salvaging of the vessel due to some technical reasons.
There was no danger at hand regarding the containers carrying dangerous substances due to the ship remaining stable.