This shit is extremely weird and happens all over. For some reason sailors are just absolutely not allowed off their shitty falling apart ships and have to stay on board even after the owners vanish and leave them hanging in the wind. There are sailors trapped in this situation in ports all over the world - the ships are too damaged to sail, or the owners vanished without paying port fees and the ship is impounded, or whatever. Weird shit. And all these sailors, mostly from global south countries, are trapped. The country they're stuck in won't let them off the ship, they have no way to pay for port fees or fuel and sometimes even food or water. It's utterly fucking bizarre.

I don't think it's a large number of ships in absolute terms, but it is common in the sense that at least a few ships are trapped in this limbo all the time. There's this whole world of ultra-shady shipping with ships that are registered in sketchy tax haven countries, or have no registration, and they get abandoned all the time. And sailors in general just get treated like shit. A lot of sailors come from poor global south countries and get treated as disposable. Terrible conditions, bad or no support from the ship owners, if something goes wrong they can be stranded and totally fucked. It's a mess, like a serious problem for workers.

the FBI still has their seized phones and shit, so not only are they stuck on a damaged ship they might be unable to reach out to family and friends (not sure what the communication/internet situation is on a ship like that).

How the fuck is “you have to let people on cargo ships into your country at least temporarily” not in any of the treaties we have regarding international shipping?

Behold the naked depravity of a state subservient to capital, observe the rules-based cruelty and recoil in horror

a barge crashed into a bridge and you’re worried about the expense of a motel 6?

This line goes hard

This story is senselessly evil enough that I'm struggling to believe it.

Similar thing happened with the ship that brought all that Ammonium Nitrate to Beirut, which happened to blow tf up a few years back.

fucking unreal. I watched the explosions the other day live while the reporters just sat there like gleeful children waiting for the countdown. Not one mention of the people on board or the situation that's going on, had no fucking clue anyone was still on board till I saw this post. There has to be some type of protocol that doesn't let you set off explosives in an inhabited vessel, absolutely no way this was done legally without intervention.

I sat there innocently wondering if the ship would move (since no one would be on a ship they're setting explosives off on) but figured they had anchored it pretty heavily beforehand and evacuated.

WHY CAN'T THEY JUST STAY IN A MOTEL?

Pretty sure no one would've release them shore side though because maritime laws are universally fucked. I've never heard of a place thats doesnt treat merchant sailors like shit.