No containers of sodium cyanide on North Sea crash vessel, owner says - Shipping company Ernst Russ said Solong has empty containers previously used to transport the ‘hazardous chemical’.

An oil tanker carrying jet fuel and a cargo ship packed with highly toxic chemicals collided in the North Sea off the coast of East Yorkshire on March 10. A crew member remains missing, with one person hospitalised and 36 other mariners from across both ships' crews now "safe and accounted for", according to a local MP.

"Sodium Cyanide is used widely in metal processing and, whilst quite corrosive and toxic, it only becomes a serious problem when wet and if it reaches high temperatures (170 C)," explains," Dr Simon Boxall, Oceanographer in the School of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton, told the Manchester Evening News