A blaze on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles off the Dutch coast has killed one person and injured several others, with coastguards warning that the fire could last for several days.

The fire began on Tuesday night on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt. Several crew members were forced to jump overboard.

The ship’s owner said an electric car in the cargo was suspected as a possible cause for the blaze. In a statement, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd said: “We are now trying to extinguish the fire in cooperation with the local authorities of [the] Netherlands, the salvor and the ship management company”.

The company told the NOS public broadcaster there was “a good chance that the fire started with electric cars”, of which about 25 were on board. “But we are not entirely sure of the cause, we are waiting for the investigation”, it said.

Rescue ships were spraying water on to the burning vessel to cool it down, but using too much water risked its sinking, the Dutch coastguard said. A salvage vessel was hooked on to stop the ship from drifting.

The fire was the latest of several in recent times on car carriers. Earlier this month, two New Jersey firefighters were killed and five injured battling a blaze on a cargo ship carrying hundreds of vehicles, while another fire destroyed thousands of luxury cars on a ship off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands in February last year.