Nearly a year ago, Estonia and Finland were shocked by the news of the Balticconnector gas pipeline and two other telecommunications cables breaking in the Baltic. The break in an important Baltic gas pipeline is believed to be due to the anchorage of the Chinese ship Newnew Polar Bear.
This summer, China admitted that the Newnew Polar Bear had accidentally damaged the Balticconnector gas pipeline.
Estonia's ETV program " Impulss" has cooperated with 6 EU stations to establish some new details about the incident.
At around 5:20 p.m. on October 7, 2023, the Chinese cargo ship Newnew Polar Bear, flying the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China), informed the ship to enter the maritime area under the management of Estonia.
Information exchanges between the ship and the traffic control center in tallinn took place normally. Despite rough seas, with waves sometimes as high as 5 m, while the Newnew Polar Bear was carrying 287 tons of dangerous goods, the coordinators did not record anything unusual.
However, 1 hour after arriving in Estonian waters, the Newnew Polar Bear passed over the Swedish-estonian telecommunications cable and, as it later revealed, the ship's anchor damaged the cable.
In collaboration with Swedish journalists from public broadcaster SVT, Impulss showed an unprecedented photo of a telecommunications cable, at thisumaa 52 km away. The photo shows that the telecommunication cable is damaged or deformed, but not severed.
The anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear is located at the bow of the ship, slightly recessed into the hull. The system is designed in such a way that when the anchor is released, the entire chain, several hundred meters long, will be released, along with the 6-ton anchor. The trough created by the anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear on the bottom of the Baltic Sea is up to 180 km long, meaning the anchor has been dragged at sea for a distance equivalent to the distance from tallinn to tartu.
The 21-member crew continued their journey after the Arelion telecommunications cable broke. By dawn on October 8, 7 hours after the first cable broke, the anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear had crashed into the Balticconnector pipeline at a speed of 11 knots. The ship's speed then suddenly dropped to 6 knots. Therefore, it is very likely that this is the time when the anchor will break the pipeline, " Impulss" noted.
"If you hook a pipeline with such an anchor, the speed will decrease and create quite a lot of noise on the entire floor. The speed dropped in an instant, but quite suddenly" - Estonian naval commander Juri Saska shared in the program. Saska said the crew of the Newnew Polar Bear should have recognized that the ship had stabbed something after getting stuck in the Balticconnector pipeline.
As Newnew Polar Bear moved out of Estonia's area of responsibility, criminal cases were opened in both Finland and Estonia on October 11. The two countries have also asked China for legal aid.
According to Reuters, Finnish President Alexander Stubb will have a state visit to China from October 28 to 31 to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government officials. The news agency noted that Finland and China have had notable diplomatic activities since October last year in the case of the Newnew Polar Bear that severed the Balticconnector gas pipeline.
