The act of heroism that prevented in Brazil a tragedy with explosive charges like the one that happened in Beirut

Paulo Veras

From Recife to BBC News Brasil

10 August 2020

Ship carried 1,500 tons of butane gas that turned into flames 20 meters high

Original here

A devastating explosion in the port sector capable of reaching entire neighborhoods, such as the one that killed at least 145 people and left 250,000 homeless in Beirut, Lebanon, almost occurred in Brazil.

It was dawn from Saturday to Sunday, on May 12, 1985, Mother's Day, when one of the tanks of the oil tanker Jatobá caught fire in the Port of Recife, in Pernambuco. The Jatobá carried 1,500 tons of butane gas that turned into flames 20 meters high. Moored on either side of the ship were two other vessels, also loaded with cooking gas.

The greatest risk, however, was that the flames would reach 153,000 cubic meters of flammable products stocked in the Brum Park, just 500 meters away from the fire. If this happened, technicians estimate that the explosion would destroy the entire Historic Center of Recife, reaching the neighborhoods of Santo Antônio, Recife, Boa Vista, Brasília Teimosa and Pina.;

Governor of Pernambuco back then, Roberto Magalhães was woken up before dawn by an officer of the Military Police. "He told me that the explosion had occurred and that I should leave the palace", he tells BBC.

Magalhães was the last governor to live at the Campo das Princesas Palace, the seat of the state government, along with his wife, Jane, and their four children. "He said that if there was another explosion, or if the fire reached the other two ships, the range would be five kilometers. The palace was less than a thousand meters, in a straight line, from the pier", he reminds.

Imminence to explode

Firefighters were called at around 1:30 am. While ten men battled the flames, three rescue garrison officers crawled up the ropes that tied the ship to the port to rescue an unconscious young man in one of the cabins.

"We were on top of the ship that was about to explode", says Colonel Leonardo Paiva, then an aspiring officer fresh out of the academy.

"Only when we arrived at the port did we realize the risk of that situation. The Brum Park was the main deposit for all the fuel companies in Pernambuco. We had only two small vehicles, without enough water to fight that flames", he recalls.

They got a pump from the port itself to supply the fire trucks with water drained from the sea which was then used to put out the fire on the ship.

"It was so hot that the soil of our boots was undone. We had no approaching clothes, no mask. The helmet had no visor. We breathed through wet towels", says Paiva.

At 4 am, the ship's captain warned the firefighters that the risk of an explosion was imminent and they started trying to evacuate the Recife District, where the port is based.

By this time, the pilot Nelcy da Silva Campos had already arrived at the port. Pilots work by guiding ships on arrival and departure from ports. Nelcy had already worked on Saturday morning, but was the only one to go to the fire site. His friend Luiz Augusto Correia de Araújo, today at 80 years old, says that he had an "unusual courage".

The only way to avoid a disaster was to take the tanker out to sea.

"Before taking the ship that was on fire, he had to take the one out of the way and put it 400 meters away. Then he went back to do the same with the one what was behind. To prevent the fire from spreading to the other two tankers ", says Nelcy Campos Filho, first born of the pilot, who was 27 at the time.

Hours of fire

That day, his mother, Luiza, woke her son at 3 am. The family lived in Espinheiro, more than five kilometers from the port, but it was possible to see the flames of the ship from there in the middle of the night.

After pushing the other two tankers away, the pilot Nelcy tied a tug to the front of the ship. At this point, firefighters were no longer cooling the vessel and the operation was delicate. The pilot took the Jatobá, still on fire, for a distance of four miles (approximately six kilometers) from the coast.

The fire in Jatobá, however, lasted another 15 hours. Gradually, the stream took the ship to Fort of Pau Amarelo, in Paulista, a city on the North Coast of Pernambuco, 20 kilometers from the port. Luiz Augusto was in charge of going there with the tug to ensure that the ship did not cause any risk to the people who were on the beach.

"As we approached, a storm began to fall. The rain was so strong that we could not see a meter ahead. The ship looked just like a candle in the distance. Until the flame went out. A more courageous sailor fell into the water and tied the ship to the tug. And he returned to Recife", he recalls.

The episode led Roberto Magalhães to determine the transfer of the tanking park to the Port of Suape, 53 kilometers south of Recife. Nelcy was recognized as a local hero and won the highest award from the state government. He would die five years later. In 2003, he won a bust from the Navy, which today is in front of the Passenger Terminal of the Port of Recife.

One year after that, in 2004, the Recife City Council gave his name to that terminal. The building, however, was redone between 2011 and 2013 and his name was removed.