Fire breaks out on Pullmantur cruise ship in Sweden

mercedes · August 19, 2009

A fire broke out on Pullmantur Cruises’ ship the Zenith today while it was docked in Stockholm.

Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest newspaper, said that 650 passengers were onboard the ship and evacuated at the time of the fire. The rest of the 1,600 passengers on the cruise, mostly from Spain, were sightseeing in Stockholm.

According the the report, heavy smoke was visible from several of the ship’s decks when the fire alarm sounded at 2:37 p.m. local time while the vessel was docked at the port of Frihamnen, Stockholm.

When the local fire department arrived, the passenger evacuation was in effect. The Aftondbladet report said that passengers were being lowered into the water on lifeboats as well as carried off on stretchers.

Aftonbladet said that the cause of the fire was unknown, but that it was thought to have started in a lower deck storage area.

Two crewmembers were being treated for smoke inhalation, the newspaper said, and were currently hospitalized.

The Zenith is a former Celebrity Cruises ship that was transferred to Pullmantur when Celebrity's parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. bought the Spanish cruise line.

It is currently on a Baltic cruise and the line told the newspaper that it is expecting to arrive at its next destination, Tallinn, tomorrow morning as planned.