Clean-up operations are underway in Siberia following an accident on May 29 that spilled more than 20,000 tons of fuel. (Denis Kozhevnikov/Tass/Getty Images)
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Oil leak from Russian tankers spreads.
Oil that leaked from two stricken tankers off the Russian coast has been detected on more beaches in the annexed Crimean peninsula, Russian authorities have said, as volunteers mount a major environmental clean-up operation.
Two old Russian tankers - the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 - were hit last month by a storm in the Kerch Strait, which links the Azov and Black Seas between Moscow-annexed Crimea and the southern region of Krasnodar.
“Two oil product pollution sites have been detected in Crimea,” Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Thursday.
They were near the beach in the town of Kerch and, further south, near Lake Tobechytske.
Almost 73,000 tons of contaminated sand have been removed from dozens of kilometers of beaches on the Russian coast since the spill, the ministry said on Thursday.
Around 200,000 tons of sand and soil may have been contaminated in total, according to the authorities.
The regional office overseeing the clean-up has published images of volunteers in white suits removing contaminated sand from beaches with shovels, including in the popular tourist town of Anapa.
The headquarters said on Thursday that 2,100 birds had been rescued so far.
Last month, Russian scientists criticized the clean-up, saying the volunteers did not have the proper equipment.
Ukraine called the oil spill “the largest in the Black Sea region in the 21st century” and blamed Moscow for using ships unsuitable for the harsh winter conditions.
Under Western sanctions, Russia has resorted to using the so-called “shadow fleet,” made up mostly of old tankers, to export its fuels around the world.
Most of the more than 1,000 tankers in Russia's “shadow fleet” are hopelessly outdated, have fictitious insurance policies, hide their true owners, and often overload the oil at sea. Further large-scale accidents are statistically inevitable,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, last month.
bur-jc/cad/gv
Komentar