Bucharest, Romania:

Romanian authorities said an explosion occurred on a ship close to its Danube port of Sulina on Wednesday, deploying a minesweeper ship with divers to scout the area for mines.

Members of the Romanian rescue services evacuated 12 crew members on board the Togo-registered cargo ship and brought them to shore for medical checks following the explosion, early Wednesday.

“A ship under the flag of Togo, transporting cement, reported an explosion in the engine room and asked for the ship to be evacuated,” Romania’s Transport Minister said in a statement.

With Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian seaports, the Danube river has become a lifeline for the export of Ukrainian grain.

The 90-metre-long ship was seven sea miles (13 kilometres) off the Romanian port of Sulina, where the Danube river flows into the Black Sea.

The cargo ship had arrived in Sulina on 12 September and was waiting to enter the Bystroye canal, on the Ukrainian side, the ministry said.

Romania’s Naval Authority sent a minesweeper and a group of specialised divers to the scene, with helicopters on standby to intervene if needed, the defence ministry said.

Since Russia launched its war against Ukraine in February 2022, the danger posed by sea mines has sharply increased in the Black Sea, with about 80 devices discovered in Romania’s territorial waters.

For now, however, there are “no clues” that a mine caused the explosion, a naval forces spokesman told reporters.

“The crew suggested that the explosion came from inside the ship,” he added.

According to local media, the crew members are of Syrian, Turkish, Lebanese and Egyptian nationality.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kyiv:

Ukraine said Sunday that it had destroyed 22 Russian drones on the southern Odesa region, as Moscow said it hit the Danube port of Reni, on the border with NATO member Romania.

Russia has been targeting Ukrainian port infrastructure in the Odesa region for weeks, after exiting a deal that allowed safe passage for ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports.

“On the night of September 3, 2023, the Russian occupiers launched several waves of attacks by ‘Shahed-136/131’ UAVs from the south and southeast,” Ukraine’s Air Force wrote on Telegram.

Twenty-five of the Iranian-made attack drones had been launched and “22 of them were destroyed by the forces and means of the Air Force in cooperation with the air defence of other components of the Defence Forces of Ukraine,” it said.

But Ukrainian prosecutors said some of the drones hit the Danube area, saying that at least two people were wounded.

The Russian army said it had targeted “fuel storage facilities” in Reni, across the Danube river from NATO and EU member Romania.

Bucharest has condemned previous Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube ports of Reni and Ismail.

Following the collapse in July of the United Nations-brokered deal allowing grain shipments from Black Sea ports, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, home to ports and infrastructure vital for agriculture exports.

Last month, the first civilian cargo ship sailing through the Black Sea from Ukraine arrived in Istanbul in defiance of the Russian blockade.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that two more vessels had passed through the country’s “temporary Black Sea grain corridor”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)