Lisbon: Marine casualties claimed 29 lives in 2025 among the occurrences reported to the European Maritime Safety Agency, the lowest annual toll of the past decade, according to the European Maritime Safety Agency’s Annual Overview of Marine Casualties and Incidents 2026. The agency recorded 95 deaths in 2016, so the decline is steep.

The overview covers 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2025 and draws on the European Marine Casualty Information Platform, fed by safety investigation authorities in the 27 Member States, Iceland and Norway. Over the decade it logged 26,802 marine casualties and incidents and 556 deaths, an average of 56 a year. Fatalities fell 39% over five years and 45% over ten years, and the 2021 to 2025 average stands at 47.

Injuries tell a less comforting story. The 2025 total reached 813, above the ten-year average of about 765, and annual injuries have exceeded 800 every year since 2023. EMSA notes that fatalities have fallen while injuries have not followed the same trend. Missing persons numbered five in 2025, down from seven in 2023 and 2024.

In 2025 the agency counted 2,630 occurrences, about 2% below the annual average, involving 2,844 ships. Sixteen ships were lost and 52 casualties were classed as very serious, among the lowest annual totals of the period. Pollution occurrences rose roughly 10% from 2024 to 55, and oil-pollution response measures were activated in 27 of them.

Cargo ships account for the largest share of marine casualties, with solid-cargo vessels making up about 38%, followed by passenger ships. Conventional passenger ships and passenger roll-on roll-off vessels together represent about 23%. Ships aged 15 to 29 years form the biggest group among vessels of known age, at 45.5% of the 2025 records. By location, 52% of 2025 occurrences happened in internal waters, 23% in territorial seas and 21% on the high seas, although EMSA cautions that this shows where events occur rather than relative risk.

The causes point to people and procedures. Across 914 finalised investigations, human action accounted for about 64% of classified accident events and system or equipment failure for about 23%. Investigators repeatedly flagged crew resource management, manning, maintenance and organisational issues. Safety recommendations followed 421 occurrences, or 11.11% of investigated cases, producing 1,316 recommendations, of which 1,066 have recorded actions. If the fall in deaths is to last, the stubborn injury figures show where the next gains in marine casualties prevention must come.