The port city – famed for its marina and stunning Old Town – topped a list of targets for Putin’s nukes last year, now conspiracy theorists fear WW3 has started off its coast
Stena Immaculate: Aerial views show damage to oil tanker
Conspiracy theorists fear World War 3 may have ‘started in Hull‘ as the White House refused to rule out foul play after a US tanker was struck by a cargo ship carrying highly toxic sodium cyanide.
Fires aboard both the Stena Immaculate, loaded with ten million gallons of jet fuel for war planes, and the Portuguese cargo ship Solong continued to burn overnight after Monday’s crash.
A search for a missing member of Solong’s crew was called off on Monday night, hours after it ploughed into the tanker, which had been anchored just off the mouth of River Humber, near Hull, East Yorks.
A White House official refused to rule out foul play in the incident, which caused jet fuel to spill into the sea and ignite, which engulfed both ships in a fireball.
And online conspiracy theorists believe the incident is the trigger of WW3 amid speculation that the Solong might have been hacked by Russia or another hostile state and turned into a ‘spear’. One wrote: “Definitely not a coincidence, this ww3 is coming.”
Another said: “My Lord. This is an act of war. We officially are in WW3. I’m heartbroken.”
The horror crash came just days after it was revealed a Russian war ship had been tracked by the Royal Navy as it sailed near British waters.
And Hull was last year revealed to be top of the list to be nuked in leaked Russian papers detailing 32 Nato targets.
The secret dossier, seen by the Financial Times, marked an unnamed target in the port city with a smokestack, suggesting it might be a factory in Mad Vlad’s crosshairs.
Dozens of small boats responded to the North Sea mayday call just before 10am on Monday as a major operation swung into action ten miles off the coast of Hull.
One trawlerman who helped the mercy mission told The Sun: “It’s a miracle they didn’t all die.” By 2.34pm crew from the ships were brought to shore in nearby Grimsby.
Video taken by a BBC helicopter on Tuesday showed one of the ships still stranded at sea, with deluges of water pouring out of its sides, almost 24 hours on from the crash.
The Solong had been sailing from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, while experts said it would have taken the Stena an hour to haul up the anchor – leaving it a sitting duck.
As the Solong steamed at 16 knots, around 18mph, down England’s east coast, its crew appeared not to see the enormous tanker parked ahead, rammed into it port side and pushed it for some distance.
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