Three people have been confirmed dead, three injured, and seven missing following a fire on a cargo ship at a military dockyard in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, a navy spokesman said on Friday according to RIA Novosti.
The fire on the Yenisey container ship, which was undergoing repairs, broke out at around 3:00 p.m. Moscow time (11:00 GMT) on Thursday, and raged for six and a half hours. The cause of the blaze is not yet known, but is believed be explosions of fuel tanks.
Captain 1st Rank Igor Dygalo told RIA Novosti that no welding work on the ship had been scheduled for that day.
"This is clear from the fact that none of the victims are welders. The investigation is ongoing," he said.
The ship was docked at a Defense Ministry facility in Baltiysk, a closed military town near Kaliningrad.
Dygalo said the renovation work on the vessel was being carried out by the ship's owner, a private company from St. Petersburg, and that the Defense Ministry had merely leased the dock to the company.
A Defense Ministry commission will arrive in at the facility on Friday to investigate the causes of the fire.
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