by Manal Barakat, SeaNewsEditor

Container ship NCL Salten ran aground near the Trondheimsfjord in Norway on Thursday missing a cottage by only five metres.

The ship, measuring 135 metres in length and 862 TEU in capacity, struck land narrowly avoiding Johan Helberg’s residence in Byneset, west of Trondheim.

Remarkably, Helberg remained unaware of the incident until his neighbour rang his doorbell persistently to alert him.

"It was quite absurd. When I looked out the window, there was a huge ship's bow there," Helberg tells Norwegian media NRK.

The grounding did not cause any damage to the house, except for severing a wire that connected the house to a heat pump.

"So we'll probably get cold during the day," says Helberg.

Owned by North Sea Container Line, the vessel was en route from Norway’s northwest coast to Orkanger at the time of the grounding.

Norwegian coastal authorities are now managing efforts to refloat the ship, working in coordination with tugboats and tide schedules.

However, a mudslide that occurred after the incident prompted the evacuation of the area.

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