A Carnival cruise ship caught fire early Thursday in Grand Turk.
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Video from Twitter user @Chester4x4 shows black smoke billowing from the ship’s “whale tail” while it was docked.
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“Carnival Freedom’s emergency response team quickly activated and extinguished a fire inside the ship’s funnel while the ship was in Grand Turk,” Carnival said.
All guests and crew members are safe. The ship’s guests were cleared to go ashore.
Jenny Fleming and her mother were on their balcony enjoying a cup of coffee when the fire erupted.
“All of a sudden, passengers from the Mardi Gras started screaming, ‘Hey! There’s a fire. There’s a fire!’ So my mom actually called 911 in the room and told them about the fire. Then the announcements started going off. The crew jumped right in and started fighting the fire,” Fleming said.
Ian Best and Jeremy Faulkner watched the flames from the Carnival Mardi Gras.
“It wasn’t just like a small fire. It was very noticeable. You could see it miles out,” they told Channel 9.
Carnival said it is continuing to assess the situation.
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“I’m sailing my mom,” Fleming said. “We’ve probably been on 50 cruises before between the two of us and nothing like this has ever happened before.”
The Carnival Freedom left Port Canaveral on Monday for a five-day cruise.
The Carnival Conquest will pick up the Freedom’s passengers on Saturday, Carnival said. The passengers will get back to Port Canaveral on Monday.
The Carnival Conquest was set to depart on Friday from Miami but that cruise has been canceled.
The Carnival Freedom will go to Freeport for a repair to its funnel. The cruise scheduled for May 28 from Port Canaveral has been canceled.
“Carnival apologized to all those guests who are impacted and offered special thanks to the crew who handled the situation on the ship effectively and according to safety protocols.”
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