Stricken cruise ship set to reach Malaysian port

Azamara Quest is escorted to safety by US and Philippines navies after suffering engine failure in waters patrolled by pirates

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Sandakan, Sunday 1 April 2012

The Azamara Quest cruise ship in Manila before a fire disabled its
engines off the southern Philippines. Photograph: Reuters

A stricken luxury cruise ship will reach a port in Malaysia late on Sunday after spending more than a day in waters prowled by pirates, according to Malaysian maritime officials and the ship's owner.

The Azamara Quest, carrying 600 passengers and 411 crew, suffered an engine-room fire on Friday that disabled the engines and left the ship temporarily stranded off the southern Philippines coast. It is being escorted by the Philippines and US navies.

The fire, the latest in a string of cruise ship accidents, was put out on Saturday. Five crew members suffered smoke inhalation and one required serious medical attention.

The 11-deck ship is on its way to the Malaysian port of Sandakan on the island of Borneo after engineers restored its propulsion, and is sailing at between three and six knots an hour, the Miami-based Azamara Club Cruises said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

"The ship is expected to reach Sandakan port by 8pm (1200 GMT)," a Malaysian maritime authority official told Reuters.

Filipino officials said a US navy vessel had joined the escort flotilla comprising several Philippine navy ships and a coastguard ship.

The vessels will follow the cruise ship until it crosses into Malaysian waters, where a Malaysian patrol ship will escort it to Sandakan.

The waters off the coast of the southern Philippines are key hunting grounds for pirates and the Abu Sayyaf, a deadly Islamic militant group.

The Abu Sayyaf wants an independent Islamic nation in the south of the Roman Catholic Philippines, and has been responsible for high-profile kidnappings of westerners, including abducting tourists from a nearby Malaysian resort island in 2000.

The rest of the cruise has been cancelled, said Azamara Club Cruises, a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Most of the passengers are from the US and western Europe.

The Azamara Quest was on a 17-night journey and had departed from Hong Kong on Monday, calling at Manila, Balikpapan, Palapo, Benoa Bali, Semarang and Komodo in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

An official from Borneo Laju, a local agent appointed by Azamara Club Cruises to repair the ship and assist the passengers, said the guests would spend the night on the ship at Sandakan and disembark on Monday.

"Engineers were able to repair one of the engines, so there was air conditioning and running water. It was not so bad," said the Borneo Laju official, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The Azamara fire was the latest in a string of cruise ship accidents.

Thirty-two people died when the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the western coast of Italy in January, and a fire on the Costa Allegra left the ship stranded in waters patrolled by pirates in the Indian Ocean for three days in February.

Both ships were run by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator.