Questions over Yemen tanker blast

The Limburg is disabled and still leaking oil

Yemeni and French experts are searching for clues on the oil tanker Limburg as opinions differ over the cause of an explosion which crippled the vessel on Sunday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that state oil company Petronas - which chartered the tanker - "did not suspect any sabotage", adding that the explosion could have been triggered by a short circuit.

Captain Ardillon says there was no technical problem

But the ship's captain, Hubert Ardillon, still maintains that the explosion off the coast of Yemen was not an accident.

Meanwhile Yemeni officials said the body of a Bulgarian crew member - the only person aboard ship unaccounted for since the explosion - had been found ashore. All the other 24 crew members are safe.

The United States and France have both sent teams to Yemen to investigate, amid fears that this might be part of a series of attacks on shipping by al-Qaeda or other groups.

The French team arrived on Tuesday to join Yemeni investigators who have already been searching the waters around the Limburg.

Latest reports suggest the fire on board has been extinguished, but the vessel is still disabled and leaking small amounts of oil.

'No accident'

The owners of the French-flagged tanker said earlier that the boat was the target of a terrorist attack - rammed by a speedboat packed with explosives - but the Yemeni Government described the announcement as "premature".

Click here to see how the explosion damaged the tanker

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs said that a senior US State Department official backed the Yemeni version, that it was an accident.

The Limburg

Double-hulled

Diesel-powered

New price $81m

299,365 deadweight tonnes

Carrying 397,000 barrels of crude oil

Chartered by Malaysian state oil company Petronas

But Captain Ardillon was quoted by the AFP news agency on Tuesday that while the explosion may not have been caused by an attack it still had not been explained.

"The way the explosion happened it could not be due to a technical problem," he said.

"A member of the crew told me he saw a small boat approach and I believe him."

Journalists taken by Yemeni officials to look at the Limburg report a metre-wide hole, with tangled metal pointed outward, suggesting an on-board blast.

However, a Reuters correspondent saw an oval-shaped hole about 8 metres (26 ft) wide, with the edges dented inward.

The captain said he thought that the first explosion occurred on the outside of the ship.

The USS Cole attack was blamed on al-Qaeda

A US naval ship, the USS Cole, fell victim to such an attack - blamed on al-Qaeda terrorists - in 2000 at the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen US sailors were killed.

The American team from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is being sent according to US defence officials, at the request of the Yemeni Government.

The team from Bahrain is said to be expert in post-blast and forensic investigation.

Yemen has launched its own investigation into the Limburg blast, and says it will co-operate with French investigators who are on their way to the scene.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the probe "will find out exactly what happened" and stressed that "no possibility is ruled out".

Two groups of French experts are to take part in the inquiry - agents from France's counterintelligence service, the Territorial Surveillance Directorate or DS, and another team, made up of transport ministry investigators.

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