A 135-meter-long cargo ship ran aground on Thursday in the Norwegian village of Byneset, near Trondheim, and came to a stop just a step away from a house on the shore.
The container ship NCL Salten ran aground just before 5:00 in the morning after entering Trondheim Fjord on its way to the town of Orkanger in western Norway, as reported by The Guardian.
A shocked neighbor watched as the ship, traveling at about 16 knots (approximately 30 km/h), headed straight towards Johan Helberg's garden, narrowly missing his house located about 40 meters from the shore.
Helberg woke up when his neighbor knocked on the door. He looked out the window and saw the ship's bow. "I went to the window and was quite surprised to see a big ship. I had to bend my neck to see the top of the ship. It was so unreal," he told the British newspaper.
"Normally, the ships turn left or right in the fjord. But this one went straight ahead. It was very close to the house," added Helberg, who has been living there for 25 years.
The Cypriot-flagged ship had 16 crew members on board, including Norwegians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Russians. There were no casualties or oil spills reported.
Police are investigating the incident and have identified a suspect on board the vessel, said Per Christian Stokke, a spokesperson for the Trøndelag police district, to the Norwegian television channel NRK.
The police have questioned the crew and are considering several possibilities, including technical malfunctions and human error.
The maritime transport company, North Sea Container Line (NCL), stated that a crew member has been named a suspect, but this is a routine police procedure.
"There is no reason to believe this was intentional," said NCL's CEO, Bente Hetland. "Incidents like this should not happen, and we have initiated an investigation into the causes. Today, we are relieved that there were no injuries, and our main focus is on the people near the ship and our crew," she added.
The ship remained stuck on Thursday after the first attempt to pull it off the shore failed. Authorities planned to try again in the evening.
T.D.