Stricken tanker's deck blown apart

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The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), working with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), used the precision explosive charges on the MSC Napoli which is grounded off Sidmouth, Devon.

Tug boats will try and pull the ship apart at high tide. If they are unsuccessful, a second round of explosive charges will be detonated on the vessel on Wednesday.

A 1,000 metre exclusion zone was placed around the ship and police closed a number of footpaths around the beach prior to the cutting charges being detonated.

"They went off with quite a bang," the spokesman said. "There was a plume of white smoke and then the noise echoed all around the bay."

Before the exercise, the ship, which is half a mile out to sea, was split around the hull just forward of the accommodation block, and only the deck plates holding it together.

The £50 million salvage operation of the Napoli began shortly after she was deliberately beached on January 20.

The ship was grounded on a seabed shelf amid fears she could sink after her hull cracked in a Channel storm off Cornwall two days earlier.

She was en route from Antwerp to South Africa when her 26 crew abandoned ship and were flown to safety.