Customs: Oil tankers fined MVR 620K, we bear no responsibility for crash

Maldives Customs says that it bears no responsibility for the two oil tankers, which reportedly had one anchor between them, drifting and crashing into the Sinamale’ Bridge in the capital last week, describing it as “a natural disaster.”

The incident in question took place amid rough seas and heavy rain on Thursday night.

Video footage shared by eye witnesses showed the tankers adrift in the waters off the Alimas Carnival, in the north of Male’ City, before one of the tankers crashed into a pillar of the Sinamale’ Bridge, and the other wrecked on the reef.

The tankers continued to drift before sinking around 30 nautical miles outside Maldivian waters.

The large vessels had illegally entered Maldivian waters back in April. The crews were composed of Indian sailors, who had made an appeal on social media seeking urgent humanitarian assistance.

The Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) stated that the sailors were rescued and handed back to the custody of Customs. The MNDF also stated that additional information would be released by Customs, as both vessels were under their control.

Nearly a week into the incident, a spokesperson from Customs told Sun on Wednesday that the vessels losing control and drifting due to bad weather was a natural disaster, and that the Customs therefore bears no responsibility over the incident.

He added that the Customs had reported the incident to MNDF.

The spokesperson said Customs had followed standard protocol and taken action against the vessels for entering the Maldives illegally, fining each of the tankers MVR 310,000.

 However, the owners of the tankers have yet to pay the fine.

The spokesperson said that the vessels were in custody of Customs only in the sense that the agency was in charge of clearance.

He said that Customs was only involved in monitoring whether food and other items go in and out of the vessels, and that all other responsibilities lay with the captains and the rest of the crew.

“The vessels had entered illegally, so we looked into that and fined the vessels MVR 310,000 each. They haven’t paid the fine,” said the spokesperson.

Credible sources within the shipping industry report the oil tankers ‘KG 1’ and ‘AL 1’ had been under investigation for entering the Maldives illegally. The vessels had 20 Indian sailors on board, all of whom were later transferred to the custody of Maldives Immigration.  11 of them have left, while nine remaining are set to be deported.

On Friday, Housing Minister Dr. Abdulla Muthalib announced via social media that engineers from Second Harbour Engineering Company (SHEC), which built the bridge, carried out inspections on Thursday night and again on Friday morning, and found no structural damage, but only surface scratches – which the company will repair.

Authorities are also investigating whether the incident resulted in damages to the reef.