Anxiety ever Gulf mines

Press, 17 August 1987, Page 8

Anxiety ever Gulf mines

NZPA-Reuter J Fujairah Shipping eperatora and seamen/ in the Gulf showed inereasing anxiety over mines yesterday after the sinking of the supply ship in the second blast in five days. "Mines are already causing panic,** said one shipping source. The supertanker Texaco Caribbean was holed in the same waters last Monday — the first time a vessel had hit a mine outside the Gulf where both Iraq and Iran have attacked shipping in an extension of their ground war. Shipping sources said they suspected Iran was behind the rash of mines, while nervous ship operators, fearful of virtually anything floating in the water, bombarded the U.A.E. port authorities and the Coast Guard with false alarms. “Every hour we receive radio messages from passing vessels saying they may have seen a mine,” one source said. An Indian tanker alerted authorities to a black object seen in the water and Coast Guard boats and a helicopter rushed to the area. They found nothing. Another ship operator said: “We had an anxious hour on Thursday when our vessel reported spotting two shining objects believed to be mines.**' It turned out they were empty boxes which had drifted out from shore.