Greek Tanker Collides With Dutch Trawler in North Sea

A Greek tanker collided with a Dutch trawler and caught fire during a snowstorm today, dumping blazing oil into the North Sea and threatening to crash into an offshore oil rig before it was taken under tow, British Coast Guard spokesmen said.

The 76,142-ton tanker Orleans burned 2 1/2 hours before the salvage tug Smit Lloyd hooked lines above a large gash on its starboard side and dragged the ship into the wind, drowning the fire.

Coast Guard spokesman Colin White said that the 76,142-ton tanker Orleans had been drifting helplessly in stormy seas and that 63 crewmen aboard the oil rig Dyvi Gamma--directly in its path--had been advised “to abandon immediately.”

The oil workers were flown by helicopter to a nearby rig, White said.

The Coast Guard said that most of the 31 men aboard the Orleans took to lifeboats in “arctic conditions” and that helicopters defied the fierce tanker fire to pull them to safety.

But the captain and two other officers remained aboard the tanker, ablaze and pouring burning oil into the water, to await the Smit Lloyd and to keep the ship from drifting into the nearby oil rigs, White said.