Wife of sailor 'felt his death' in explosion

The explosion in the boiler room of the Manhattan Bridge container ship killed Celso Banas

A sailor's wife has told an inquest she woke with a start at the moment he was killed in a boiler room explosion on the other side of the world.

Jesselyn Vuelban Banas was at home in the Philippines when her husband Celso, 35, died on a ship docking in Suffolk.

She awoke suddenly, feeling "nervous for a reason I could not understand" early in the morning of 20 January 2017, an inquest heard.

Mr Banas was killed in an explosion aboard the Manhattan Bridge.

Representatives from the ship's owners, K Line Europe, came to her house later in the day to tell her of Mr Banas's death.

"I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. It was such a painful thing to process," she said in a statement read to Suffolk Coroner's Court.

The couple had married in 2013 and have a daughter, who was three when Mr Banas died.

'Always worth the wait'

Mr Banas came from a family of tenant farmers but went to college to follow his dream of working at sea, the inquest heard.

He worked away nine months of the year "but every time he came home it was always worth the wait", said Mrs Banas.

"I still got giddy every time I collected him at the airport. I always felt like the first time we met.

"We had a very simple, very happy married life."

Celso Banas had been responding to an alarm on a boiler on board the Manhattan Bridge

Mr Banas was an oiler aboard the Manhattan Bridge container ship which was docking at the Port of Felixstowe at about 23:00 GMT on 19 January.

The inquest has heard that alarms on the auxiliary boiler being tended to by Mr Banas had been tripped six times that day but the crew did not consider it unusual.

An inspection found a thick "waxy" build-up in the filter which could stop fuel flowing freely, but the ship had not been using the anti-waxing chemical advised by its owners, the inquest was told.

The inquest continues.