London, May 23 (IANS) A Norwegian man had a narrow escape as a huge container ship ran aground onto his garden, missing his bedroom where he was sleeping by scant metres, reports said on Friday.
The incident occurred in Byneset, near Trondheim city, and Johan Helberg was asleep throughout the arrival of his unexpected visitor – the 135-metre, Cypriot-flagged cargo ship, the NCL Salten.
Helberg only woke to find the ship when his neighbour, who had witnessed the ship heading for the shore, rushed to his house to alert him, the BBC reported.
“The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told Norwegian television channel TV 2.
He said that he went to the window and “was quite astonished to see a big ship, adding that he had to bend his neck to see its top.
Five metres further south and it would have entered the bedroom, and “that wouldn’t have been particularly pleasant”, he said.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Helbe told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, adding that he was told that there had been a loud noise.
Helberg’s neighbour, Jostein Jorgensen, said he was woken by the sound of the ship as it headed at full speed towards land – and Helberg’s house.
“I was sure that he was already outside, but no, there was no sign of life. I rang the doorbell many times… it was only when I called him on the phone that I managed to contact him,” Jorgensen told TV2.
Helberg said that the ship was “a very bulky new neighbour, but it will soon go away.”
He said that he was “very excited” to see how the ship would be removed from his garden, adding that it would take a lot of effort.
No one was injured in the incident.
The container vessel had 16 people on board and was travelling south-west through the Trondheim Fjord to Orkanger when it went off course, the BBC reported.
It is not known what caused the crash, and Norwegian police are said to be investigating.
Bente Hetland, the Managing Director of NCL, which had chartered the ship, said it was a “serious incident” and “we are grateful that nobody was injured”.
–IANS
vd/vd