Apr 09 2021 Maritime insurer The Standard Club says that enclosed space fatalities are continuing to occur on ships, although much more on dry cargo vessels than tankers. A webinar on October 12 reviewed how the issue is evolving. “We continue seeing enclosed space fatalities onboard ships,” said Capt Yves Vandenborn, director of loss prevention with the Standard Club. “It just keeps happening at a very frequent rate.”
He was speaking at a webinar on October 12 organised by the Standard Club and the International Ship Manager’s Association.
The most recent public data available is from April 2019, when the International Transport Workers Federation announced that since January 2018, 16 dock workers and 12 seafarers had died from asphyxiation or explosions in confined spaces – or from falls after passing out due to bad air. This meant something of a spike, after seeing 145 casualties over the past 20 years (average 7 per year).