AP-Oil Tanker Explodes Near Thailan

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Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: AP-Oil Tanker Explodes Near Thailand

Monday October 18 4:23 AM ET
Oil Tanker Explodes Near Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A Myanmar oil tanker exploded while at anchor close
to the country's tense border with Thailand, police said today.

Thai police at the Thai port of Ranong, 290 miles southwest of Bangkok,
later arrested three Myanmar nationals traveling in a boat in Thai waters
and carrying dynamite.

``These people accepted that they owned the dynamite but denied any
involvement in the oil tank explosion. We are detaining all of them for
investigation,'' said Major General Charoen Maneewong, commander of the
Ranong police.

The ``Chuay Mit'' oil tanker exploded just off the Myanmar coast, one mile
from Thailand, late Saturday. It burned for seven hours, he said.

Two crewmen on the oil tanker, owned by a company in the nearby Myanmar port
of Kawthaung, died. A cargo ship carrying smuggled cement had also been
destroyed in the blast, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.

A Myanmar government spokesman, on customary condition of anonymity, denied
the blast was sabotage and called it an ``unfortunate accident'' resulting
from a collision with another vessel that had gasoline containers as cargo.

The incident comes at a time of bilateral tension after Myanmar, also known
as Burma, suspended Thai fishing concessions in Myanmar's Andaman Sea waters
in response to the storming of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok on Oct. 1 by
anti-Yangon student militants.