Early in the afternoon of 1 May, Oleksandr Lepyoshkin entered his cabin to find it filled with smoke. Seconds later the glass exploded from his windows as the ship was rocked by several blasts and a huge fire began to overrun the vessel. He alerted the ship’s chief engineer who started the onboard fire pump. While he waited for word on whether they would need to abandon the ship, Lepyoshkin counted his crew members.
The explosion on board the oil tanker, known as the Pablo, had immediately attracted the attention of other vessels anchored at the busy entrypoint to the Malacca Straits. Sat upon the horizon several tankers and cargo ships began to issue reports of a ship on fire, as plumes of black smoke filled the sky around the stricken vessel.
