On 7th May at 19.13 hours CET (0113 hours local time) whilst en route from Qingdao to Ningbo in China, the 50,686gt/2006 built and 4,650 TEU capacity Safmarine Meru (above) collided with the 94,407gt/2009 built Northern Jasper, a German-owned container vessel.

The collision took place around 120 nautical miles East of Ningbo and caused severe damage to the Safmarine Meru and a fire broke out. The ship’s crew of 22 people abandoned the vessel shortly after.

All crew from both ships were safe and were transferred ashore. The Safmarine Meru was reported as afloat and anchored. Firefighting was initiated the following morning. At the time of the collision, the Safmarine Meru had less than 400 full containers on board and was deployed on Maersk line’s TP18 service.