Salvage experts hope to resume pumping fuel oil off a beached cargo ship near Cape Town later on Sunday and plan to lift some of its hazardous cargo midweek, but radioactive uranium ore will stay on board. Pumping stopped on Saturday due to bad weather after some 1,500 tons of oil were shifted from the ship's engine supplies.

The 33,000 dwt Sealand Express container ship owned by U.S. Ship Management Inc. (USSM) was carrying almost 4,000 tons of fuel oil as well as 50 tons of uranium ore, flammable gas, industrial alcohol and fireworks.

Salvage operators Smit Pentow Marine and USSM said the uranium ore would stay on the ship as it was ?least at risk whilst still onboard...under constant monitoring.? The Environment Ministry said the uranium ore in three containers was not enriched and therefore had low levels of radioactivity. The ore was headed for Canada, a spokesman for the ship's charterer, Danish group A.P. Moeller-Maersk, told Reuters.

Smit Pentow Marine and USSM said in a statement a heavy duty Mi5 helicopter, capable of lifting around five tons, had been called in to airlift some of the cargo and would arrive late on Tuesday. ?We're relieved by the better than expected weather conditions?, USSM spokesman Evelyn John Holtzhausen said. Bad weather expected for Cape Town overnight was not as severe as forecast and the next wave of storms were due late yesterday. The team hope to refloat the vessel with the next spring tide, due this week.

Stormy seas dragged the ship onto Sunset Beach in Table Bay, 10 km north of central Cape Town, on Tuesday, as it tried to enter the harbour en route from Durban in the east of the country for Newark, New Jersey in the United States. Authorities have banned the public from approaching within 800 metres of the vessel.