Today a fire leading to significant smoke formation broke out on a cruise ship newbuilding (the Norwegian Getaway) in the covered building dock II at the Meyer Werft shipyard, according to a prepared statement from the yard.

At present the shipyard’s fire brigade and members of the Papenburg fire department are still in operation at the yard. The affected production areas and the shipyard’s visitors center were evacuated.

As of now there are no detailed indications as the reason for the fire.

“In general we install large-size safety and detection systems on our ships as early as in the construction period. Hence we could react very quickly,” explained the yard’s safety manager, Markus Wähler.

As it stands at present nobody was injured. In the current situation nothing can be said in regard to material damage.

Completion of the newbuilding in 2014 is not at risk according to information currently available, and construction is set to resume on Wednesday March 6.