Up, up and away
When the Sunrise Orient ran aground off Cheung Chau this year, a salvage operation was rushed into action. Three months later, not a trace of the accident remained, writes Anna Healy Fenton.
The HK URBEX "urban explorers" who climbed aboard the Sunrise Orient to produce a cheeky YouTube video made larking about on a shipwreck look like fun, but dealing with a large, stricken, cargo-laden vessel is anything but child's play.
The 90-metre, Vietnamese-owned vessel came to grief off Cheung Chau island on February 21. Many of the 17-strong Vietnamese crew had worked on board since she was built, in 2011, but when the vessel started to list at an angle of 45 degrees, they abandoned ship sharpish - clambering aboard a marine police launch - and left the engine running.
[Inside a submerged hold] the colour of the water is like a stained-glass window
A Marine Department investigation into the cause of the accident followed, and one police source suggested: "The cargo was probably moving on board, which caused the vessel to lean significantly to one side."
The Sunrise Orient, travelling from Nansha, in Guangdong province, to Indonesia, continued to circle before the engine cut out about a kilometre east of Cheung Chau and the vessel drifted onto the rocky beach at Tung Wan Tsai.
Floating booms were soon deployed by the Marine Department's pollution control unit, to contain a small oil slick.
"There was only a light sheen of oil which escaped when she first came to rest on the rocks, so it was rapidly dealt with," says Alan Loynd, managing director of Branscombe Marine Consultants, and an international salvage expert.
Fortunately, the Sunrise Orient was wrecked in a relatively quiet area, away from the busy ferry lanes to Macau. Nevertheless, the authorities wanted the Sunrise Orient removed as fast as possible, not least because of possible environmental damage. Furthermore, typhoon season was approaching.
