WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Oct 7, (AP): A fuel spill is "highly probable” after a New Zealand navy ship grounded, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa, the Pacific island nation's acting prime minister said late Sunday. All 75 people on board the HMNZS Manawanui were taken to safety on life boats. The ship, one of only nine in New Zealand's navy, was the first the country has lost at sea since World War II.

Officials in Samoa are assessing the environmental impact in the area where the ship sank on Sunday morning, acting Prime Minister Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio said in a statement. The vessel's passengers - including civilian scientists and foreign military personnel - evacuated in "challenging conditions” and darkness, New Zealand’s Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding told reporters.

The vessel was about a mile from shore when it grounded on a reef and began taking on water, and it took five hours for the first survivors to reach land, he said. Authorities in Samoa said a few passengers were treated for minor injuries after some walked across the reef to safety. New Zealand will hold a court of inquiry into the loss of the ship.

The cause of the accident is not known, but Defence Minister Judith Collins told 1News on Monday that she had been told a loss of power to the vessel had led to its grounding. The specialist dive and hydrographic vessel had been in service for New Zealand since 2019, but was 20 years old and had previously belonged to Norway, Collins said. It was surveying a reef off the coast of Upolu, Samoa’s most populous island, when it ran aground on the reef.

Photos and videos taken from the shore appeared to show the ship listing before disappearing completely below the waves, with a large plume of smoke rising where it sank. Collins said Sunday that she did not expect the vessel could be salvaged. "This is a ship that unfortunately is pretty much gone,” she told reporters.