The Russian captain of a ship involved in the North Sea crash has appeared in court.
Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, was remanded into custody after appearing at Hull Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.
He has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter.
Motin had been captain of the Solong, a container ship, that was involved in a crash with the US-registered oil tanker the Stena Immaculate, on Monday.
One member of the Solong crew is believed to be dead.
He has been named by the Crown Prosecution Service as 38-year-old Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia.
The crash took place about 13 miles off the Yorkshire coast and saw dozens of people forced to abandon the vessels as they caught fire.
A large search and rescue operation was launched and successfully brought 36 people from both ships back ashore.
The Solong had been sailing from Grangemouth in Scotland to Rotterdam in the Netherlands at the time of the collision.
It was initially feared to be carrying sodium cyanide, but the German owner Ernst Russ said four containers on the vessel had previously been carrying the chemical.
The Stena Immaculate is still at anchor at the same point where the collision happened.
Meanwhile, the Solong drifted south of this location, but both vessels were said to be “stable”, with salvors having boarded to assess the damage.
The Stena Immaculate had been carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated tanks – at least one of which was “ruptured” during the collision, US shipping firm Crowley, who operates the ship, said.
But it said the jet fuel spill was having a “limited” impact.
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