British transport police (BTP) had to evacuate stranded passengers outside the south London station, with conditions on board described as a "nightmare" by one commuter.
The challenges involved in fighting a fire of this magnitude in severe conditions on board the Sindhurakshak were considerable.
"Conditions on board the ship are very challenging and we sincerely apologize for the discomfort and inconvenience our guests are currently enduring".
It said the number of arrivals in Europe is broadly the same but deaths are rising due to deteriorating conditions on board ships.
"We don't know where the boat is, but conditions on board must be very bad," said Estelle Guluman of the United Nations Children's Fund in Cotonou.
Other cruise industry watchdogs say the cruise line will try to minimize bad publicity by playing down conditions on board and minimizing safety risks to travelers.
The provisions of the convention aim to ensure that vessels are constructed and maintained so that workers have decent living conditions on board, suitable for the long periods they often spend at sea.
Once the rig was at sea, several hundred people at a time frantically worked to complete it, sleeping in cramped, chaotic conditions on board a temporary encampment of ships.
A British naval surgeon (1739 48) and a physician at the Haslar Hospital for men of the Royal Navy, Gosport (1758 94), Lind observed thousands of cases of scurvy, typhus, and dysentery and the conditions on board ship that caused them.
"Conditions on board the ship are very challenging, and we sincerely apologize for the discomfort and inconvenience our guests are currently enduring," Gerry Cahill, the chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines, said in a statement.
