China has admitted for the first time that Hong Kong-flagged container ship Newnew Polar Bear is responsible for the damage inflicted to a Baltic Sea gas pipeline in October.
An official investigation into the incident has determined it was an accident, the South China Morning Post wrote on Monday, citing a Chinese-language government report.
The Balticconnector gas pipeline was closed on October 8 after pressure quickly fell, alerting the operator to the leak. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said an “external activity” was behind the breach to the Finland-Estonia link, as well as damage to two telecom cables.
Alf van Beem/Wikimedia Commons
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) recovered a six-ton anchor nearby and identified the 554-foot Newnew Polar Bear as the likely culprit.
According to the Post’s report, China has shared the results of its investigation with Estonia and Finland.
The document “can’t be used as evidence in an Estonian criminal investigation,” said a spokesperson for the Estonian prosecutor’s office. A spokesperson for Finland’s NBI declined to comment on China’s findings but stressed its own inquiry is still in progress.
However, both governments said they have sent Beijing legal assistance requests.
“In order to execute the legal aid request, the Chinese authorities can carry out the investigative operations by themselves or involve Estonian investigators, although all activities conducted on Chinese territory must conform to local legislation,” Kair Kungas, head of the Estonian prosecutor’s public relations office, was quoted as saying.
He added that China has not yet responded to the request.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Newsweek‘s request for comment.
The European Union members have said evidence suggests the damage was done by the Newnew Polar Bear‘s anchor as it dragged along the seabed.
This may have occurred without crew members even noticing, according to Magnus Winberg, a lecturer at Turku, Finland’s Aboa Mare Maritime Academy. “If a ship is moving at 10-12 knots, the crews of passing ships have no reason to take out their binoculars and see whether it’s dragging its anchor chain,” he told local media in November.
Estonian transportation department official Are Piel told local outlet ERR anchor dragging is a “very rare occurrence.” “Either the ship has broken down or something has been broken in a storm,” he said, adding that it couldn’t be ruled out.
The two-way, 48-mile Balticconector pipeline resumed operations in April. It provides Finland with critical natural gas drawn from Latvia’s Incukalns underground storage facility.