A Chinese container ship’s dislodged anchor caused damage to a Baltic Sea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, Finnish police believe.
The Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel Newnew Polar Bear is responsible for the damage earlier this month to the undersea Balticconnector pipeline spanning the Gulf of Finland, said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), citing evidence and data.
Investigators said the Finnish navy has retrieved an anchor from the location where the pipeline ruptured on 8 October, and they were investigating whether it belonged to the Chinese vessel.
The coincidence is that’s not the only pipeline that’s been damaged by a surprisingly large anchor recently. Given that the pipeline routes are on the maritime charts and at least some of these have happened in places where you would not expect ships to be anchoring to avoid this sort of thing it doesn’t seem plausible to me that this is all accidental.
Chinese boats are known to not give a floating fuck about anything in international waters.
Also in other people’s waters.
Apparently the anchor has been dragging for miles before it hit the pipeline. They may not have known they were dragging. Or it was an elaborate plan. Never know until they question the crew, which they haven’t been able to contact.