The Kerala High Court on Tuesday ordered the conditional arrest of Liberian-flagged ship MV MSC Palermo for securing claims related to losses incurred after its sister vessel, MSC Elsa 3, sank off the Kochi coast on May 25, Live Law reported.

MV MSC Palermo is currently anchored at the Vizhinjam port in Thiruvananthapuram.

The petitioners had claimed that their fishing vessels were damaged by the floating debris of MSC Elsa 3. The court ordered the conditional arrest of MV MSC Palermo till security of Rs 2.6 crore is deposited, according to Live Law.

MSC ELSA 3 was on its way from Vizhinjam to Kochi and carrying 640 containers, including 13 hazardous cargo and 12 calcium carbide containers, when it sank “reportedly due to flooding in one of the holds”, the Indian Coast Guard had said.

The High Court had in July issued a similar order to detain MV MSC Akiteta II.

On June 18, the court ordered MV MSC Polo II to be detained in a suit filed by Sans Cashew India Private Limited, which claimed that its consignment worth Rs 74 lakh was lost due to the sinking.

This came four days after the court on June 13 ordered the detention of another vessel, MSC Manasa F, which is also operated by the Mediterranean Shipping Company, following petitions from five other cargo owners who also lost shipments in the incident.

The order secured nearly Rs 6 crore as a conditional deposit for the release of the ship.

On May 29, the Kerala government declared the wreckage of MSC ELSA 3 a state-specific disaster.

Tinku Biswal, principal secretary of the State Disaster Management Department, had stated that the shipwreck posed a potentially serious threat to Kerala’s coast, environmentally, socially and economically.