Heavy smoke and flames engulfed the Carnival Freedom cruise ship that had departed from Florida and was docked in Grand Turk early Thursday.

The flames on the ship have been extinguished, and no passengers were reported injured. Authorities are investigating what caused the fire.

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"Carnival Freedom’s emergency response team quickly activated and extinguished a fire inside the ship’s funnel while the ship was in Grand Turk," Carnival Cruise Line, the company in charge of the ship, said in a statement. "All guests and crew are safe, and the ship’s guests were cleared by local authorities to go ashore. We continue to assess the situation."

The ship had left Florida from Port Canaveral on Monday and had been headed on a five-day cruise. Grand Turk is a small tropical island to the south of Florida that is a popular tourist spot.

Flames broke out on the funnel or “whale tail” of the ship, which is typically where the exhaust of the cruise ship is located. The extent of the damage to the vessel remains unclear. Passengers were told to move to the muster station and wear life jackets, WESH reported.

Passengers posted footage of the billowing flames on social media.

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Another video provided a different angle of the inferno.


Carnival Cruise Line has not said whether the trip will continue or if the incident will affect other planned trips. The ship was constructed in 2007, is 948 feet long, and can hold up to 3,581 passengers, per CruiseMapper.