Volunteers help collect oil-soaked sand from a beach near the town of Blagoveshchenskaya
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Russian Scientists Criticize Oil Spill Clean-up
Russian scientists on Wednesday criticized efforts to clean up the oil that was washed ashore by two tankers, saying there is not enough equipment.
On December 15, two Russian tankers, the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, were hit by a storm in the Kerch Strait, with one sinking and the other running aground.
The strait separates southern Russia from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by the country in 2014.
The ships were carrying 9,200 tons of fuel oil, of which, according to the Russian authorities, around 40% may have spilled into the sea.
Last week, President Vladimir Putin called the incident an “ecological disaster.”
Thousands of volunteers have been mobilized to remove the oil-soaked sand from nearby beaches.
But scientists say the volunteers don't have the necessary equipment.
“There are no excavators there, no trucks. There's practically no heavy machinery,” said Viktor Danilov-Danilyan at a press conference.
Danilov-Danilyan is the scientific head of the Institute of Water Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences and was Russia's environment minister in the 1990s.
The volunteers have only “shovels and useless plastic bags that tear,” he said.
“While the bags are waiting to be finally collected, storms come, and they end up back in the sea. It's unthinkable!”
Public criticism of the authorities is rare in Russia.
Russia's natural resources minister said on Monday that up to 200,000 tons of sand may have been contaminated with oil.
Some 30,000 tons have already been collected, the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said on Wednesday.
Sergei Ostakh, a professor at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, said that oil could soon reach the Crimean coast.
“No one should have any illusions that the oil will remain clean,” he said, calling for swift action.
The oil spills may have killed 21 dolphins, the Delfa dolphin rescue center said, although additional tests are needed to confirm the cause of death.
bur/rl/giv
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