It may have been a sleeping guard who was responsible for a container ship running aground on Thursday right next to a home on the Trondheimsfjord in Norway.
Police lawyer Kjetil Bruland Sørensen told the Norwegian news agency NTB on Friday.
- I can confirm that the police initially received information from others who were on board that he was sleeping, says Bruland Sørensen.
The suspect is not the captain, but was responsible for navigating when the ship headed towards land.
The images of the 135-meter-long ship, which ended up just a few meters from a home, went around the world on Thursday. There were no injuries or oil spills in connection with the accident.
According to NTB, the company that owns the ship, North Sea Container Line, writes about Friday's statement from the police:
- We note that the police say that they suspect a person after yesterday's incident, and we continue to help the police with their work.
- We are also conducting internal investigations, but do not want to speculate on the causes before the authorities have come to their conclusions.
The person is suspected of having violated Section 14 of the Norwegian Ship Safety Act, which states that ships must be navigated so as not to create "danger to life and health, the environment or material assets", NTB writes.
The ship NCL "Salten" was on its way from the Norwegian northwest coast to Orkanger inside the fjord system. It hit land while Johan Helberg was sleeping in his house in Byneset, west of Trondheim. He only woke up when the neighbor "rang the doorbell loudly."
- If it had hit five meters to the left, it would have slid up the rocks, and then my house would probably have looked completely different, Johan Helberg tells the Norwegian media NRK.
The ship is sailing under the Cypriot flag.
/ritzau/
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