Offshore Host Sealand Hit by Fire
July 6, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — World War II missile platform, sovereign nation and secure offshore data hosting facility Sealand (sealandgov.org) made headlines last week when a fire on the platform required the assistance of England’s Royal Air Force.
A RAF search-and-rescue team received a distress call last week from the anti-aircraft platform, which declared sovereignty in 1967, and found one end of the platform on fire. The team rescued a man from the platform – who was suffering from smoke inhalation – and took him to a hospital in England. The fire was extinguished.
Sealand is also home to an American company HavenCo, which operates a data center facility within the offshore platform it bills as “the world’s most secure managed servers in the world’s only true free market environment.”
According to a press release issued by Sealand, the fire started in the main power generation facility, and caused estimated damages of 1 million Sealand dollars, the equivalent of $1 million U.S.
The man airlifted from the facility, according to the release, was the facility’s security detail.
The press release also thanked the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Harwich Harbor Authority, the coast guard and the Royal Air Force for their service.
