Ship Fire off Mallorca Mostly Extinguished

Spanish emergency services have largely put out a fire aboard a vehicle transport ship off the island of Mallorca after some of the crew were airlifted to safety earlier on Wednesday.

The Sea Rescue Society posted a short video on Twitter showing fire ships spraying water over a small section of the covered upper decks of the Italian-flagged "Grande Europa", which had been blackened by the flames, but had no smoke or fire coming out of it.

It said 15 out of the 25-strong crew had been taken off the ship by helicopter and were safe, and the fire had been "practically extinguished by three rescue ships and the vessel's own anti-fire systems".

The Balearic Islands Emergency Service said the rest of the crew had remained on board helping to combat the fire. It was not yet clear what had caused the fire, the services said.

Reporting by Tomas Cobos and Andrei Khalip