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According to several media reports, a cargo ship carrying nearly 3000 cars caught fire near the northern Dutch island of Amelan on July 26, killing one crew member and injuring many others. It is understood that the fire is registered in Panama cargo ship "Freemantle Avenue", the cargo ship is 199 meters long, is Japan's Kenji shipbuilding built a 6220 parking space car transport ship, delivered to operation in 2013, the final destination of the cargo ship is Singapore. According to Vestager, a spokesman for the Dutch Coast Guard, there are 2857 cars on board, of which 25 are electric vehicles.

The Dutch Coast Guard said the fire on the freighter could last for days. At present, they can only spray water on the freighter to put out the fire and cool down, but too much water may cause the freighter to sink. As for the cause of the fire, a spokesman for the Dutch Waterway and Public works Department said: or the relationship with the cargo carried by the ship. In response, a number of car companies responded urgently. Spokesmen for Ford, Stellantis, Renault and Nissan all said there were no own-brand cars on board. Toyota also said it was unlikely to have a car on board. Volkswagen said it was actively investigating the matter and could not provide further information. A spokesman for BMW said there were its branded vehicles on board, but did not disclose the number. For its part, Mercedes-Benz said there were about 300 Mercedes-Benz cars on board.

As of the 28th, the Dutch Coast Guard said: the fire has not been put out, but the situation is stable. The number of electric vehicles carried by the cargo ship has been confirmed to be nearly 500. according to the Japanese Kawasaki steamship in charge of the loading of the Fremantel Highway, it was confirmed on the 28th that it was carrying a total of 3783 vehicles, of which 498 were electric vehicles. The Dutch Coast Guard did not elaborate on the gap in the number of trams on board, saying only that the "25 electric vehicles" came from the first batch of data received, which was different from the data obtained later. As rescue work progresses, more information will be gathered. As for the cause of the fire on the cargo ship, Dutch media quoted a recorded call from rescue workers as saying that "the fire was caused by the battery of an electric car", but the Dutch Coast Guard stressed that "so far the cause of the fire is unknown."

In fact, the incident of a freighter on fire also happened last year. In February last year, a large freighter Felicity Ace carrying 4000 Volkswagen cars caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean and sank after nearly half a month of rescue. It is understood that the Felicity Ace freighter carries all the cars produced by Volkswagen, and most of them are luxury cars under Volkswagen, with a total price of more than 500 million euros. Including Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley and so on. Volkswagen Group said that the vehicle damage will be borne by the insurance company, and the insurance cost is expected to reach $155 million (about 970 million yuan).

As for the cause of the fire, the rescued captain of the Felicity Ace revealed to the media that a car in the cabin caught fire with a lithium battery. Due to the dense arrangement of new cars in the cabin, the fire quickly spread. And the lithium battery fire needs special fire-fighting equipment, the crew failed to find it in time, as a result, the fire in the cabin became more and more popular, and finally completely out of control. Relevant data show that because the internal temperature of lithium batteries carried by electric vehicles will quickly rise to more than 1200 degrees Celsius when burning, which is much higher than that of gasoline flames at room temperature and pressure, the fire of lithium batteries in electric vehicles cannot be put out directly with water, and professional fire-fighting equipment and special processes are required.

The public said that it is working with local authorities and shipping companies to investigate the cause of the fire on the cargo ship Felicity Ace. At present, the specific cause of the fire of the two cargo ships has yet to be announced by the authorities.

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