16 evacuated as burning ship spews toxic gas off Canada’s Pacific coast

16 people have been evacuated from a burning cargo ship off Canada’s Pacific coast.

The Zim Kingston ship is anchored off the city of Victoria in British Colombia, Canada where it caught fire. It was en route to Vancouver.

The incident was reported at around 11PM local time on Saturday. The Canadian coast guard website had released a navigation advisory, warning that the ship was expelling toxic gas.

Later on, they announced to have rescued 16 people from the Zim Kingston in a tweet.

The flames are still gushing out even after the response teams had spent the night cooling the exterior of the ship. They cannot interact directly with the flames as they are chemical borne.

Over 10 containers have been affected by the fire, according to the Canadian Coast Guard.

People ashore are not at risk but the situation will be monitored to ascertain it remains that way, the Coast Guard said.

Just two of the containers ablaze on the Zim Kingston were carrying over 115,000 pounds of chemicals. Experts are still figuring what caused the fire.