Sunday 24 October 2021 · moved the Index · regime
ZIM Kingston fire
A container ship caught fire off the coast of British Columbia after a bomb cyclone knocked approximately 106 shipping containers into the Pacific Ocean. The crew was evacuated and rescued. Hazardous materials were burning aboard the vessel, and fires took several days to extinguish.
Peak 118.8 on Sunday 24 October 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Broad-led; on the peak day itself it read Mixed-led. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
The #12 incident since 2020 by peak. Its peak day ranks #189 among all days — the higher days all belong to 12 bigger incidents.
How far it spread
Spilled over — 2 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: pollution event. Trade press was 3% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 51% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 5% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Fire burns aboard container ship off British Columbiaapnews.com · 2021-10-24
- Fire blazes on cargo ship containers off British Columbiareuters.com · 2021-10-24
- Canada container ship fire: 'bomb cyclone' storm may hinder effort to assess damage | Canadatheguardian.com · 2021-10-25
- Fire Burns Aboard ZIM Container Ship off British Columbiahamodia.com · 2021-10-24
- Container ship fire off British Columbia smoldering, no ...trust.org · 2021-10-24
- Container ship fire off British Columbia smoldering, no longer spreadingswissinfo.ch · 2021-10-24
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- integrated and peak-day verdicts differ (smoothing artefact likely)
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
Maritime Attention Index, incident: ZIM Kingston fire, peak 118.8 on 24 October 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-zim-kingston-fire/