On 17 June 2013, MOL Comfort suffered a crack amidships in bad weather about 200 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen. On 26 June, water ingress was reported in the stern section and on the following day the vessel sank to a depth of 4,000 metres. Some of the approximately 1,700 containers on board in the stern section were confirmed to be floating near the site. While no major oil leak was reported, the stern section was said to contain about 1,500 tons of fuel.

The vessel was underway from Singapore to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a cargo of 4,382 containers equivalent to 7,041 TEU. The crew of 26 — 11 Russians, one Ukrainian and 14 Filipinos — abandoned ship and were rescued from two life rafts and a lifeboat by the German-flagged container ship Yantian Express, one of three vessels diverted to the site of incident by ICG Mumbai.

After the initial structural failure, both sections remained afloat with the majority of the cargo intact and began drifting in a east-northeast direction. A salvage company was contracted to tow the sections to safety. On 24 June, four ocean-going tugboats arrived at the scene and began towing the bow section to safety.

The exact cause of the accident is not known. The sum of wave loading, cargo loading as well as whipping may have exceeded the hull girder collapse strength. The risk of whipping contributing has been raised by classification societies like Det Norske Veritas and Bureau Veritas after MSC Napoli, another large container ship, broke in two.

 (Spill-international, Edited by Topco)