India tries to refloat dry dock

Questions are being asked about navy maintenance

By Subir Bhaumik BBC correspondent in Calcutta

The Indian navy is trying to salvage a huge floating dry dock which sank on Wednesday in the Andaman Islands.

The tips of two massive cranes are still visible - but the rest of the dock has settled on the sea floor at a depth of about 20 metres.

We cannot say whether it would be possible to salvage the dry dock

Naval technicians

How the dock sank is still not clear, but naval officials say preliminary inquiries suggest a failure of the pumping system.

The disaster could have been much worse, coming as it did just hours after a ship which was being repaired in the dock had sailed out to sea, naval officials said.

A senior official in the navy's far eastern command described the incident as "a big loss".

"The floating dry dock had been extensively used for anchorage and repair by a large number of combat and non-combat vessels," he told the BBC.

The navy has ordered an inquiry.

Cause unknown

The floating dry dock, FDN-1, had been stationed in the Andamans since 1987 when it the Indian navy first began using it. It was made in Japan four years earlier.

For well over two decades, the dry dock served as temporary anchorage for a number of vessels and it provided crucial repair and refit facilities to naval vessels in the Andaman Islands, which have emerged as the HQ of the newly-created far eastern command of the Indian navy since early this year.

Officials are looking at whether the dock's pumps failed.

When ships are taken into the floating dry dock for repair, huge amounts of sea water are pumped in to float them into the dock.

The water is then pumped out and repairs are effected in dry conditions.

After repair, water is again pumped in to allow the ship to float out, and the water is then pumped out again.

"But perhaps due to the collapse of the dock's pumping system, it was not possible to pump out the water after a ship had left the dock early on Wednesday. It seems the dock sank under the weight of the water," a naval technician told the BBC, again on condition of anonymity.

Second disaster

The FDN-1 was anchored at Haddow's Wharf, barely 550 metres from the main Port Blair harbour and just 100 metres into the sea.

"We cannot say whether it would be possible to salvage the dry dock but if that is possible, refitting would be expensive," naval technicians said.

The disaster was the second to hit the Indian navy within 24 hours.

Late on Tuesday night, a devastating fire damaged the state-owned Garden Reach Shipbuilders in Calcutta, severely damaging their design floor and one production line.

Officials said large numbers of documents were lost.

Employees in the ship building company suggested it could have been a deliberate attempt to destroy some documents.

But a company spokesman said a short circuit had caused the fire, which took hours to bring under control.