Russian authorities announced on Wednesday that they were facing an oil spill extending over 49 kilometers of beach, particularly in seaside resorts in the Krasnodar region, in the southwest of the country, after the sinking of two oil tankers in the Kerch Strait. , near annexed Crimea.
“49 kilometers of coastline are being cleaned in the Temryuk and Anapa districts,” popular seaside resorts in the Krasnodar region, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.
Some 2,700 rescuers and volunteers were dispatched to the scene, according to the same source.
“Approximately 80 tonnes of oil have been collected since the start of the work,” the press release specifies.
The city of Anapa, which has some 90,000 inhabitants, was placed on Tuesday by the authorities in an “emergency situation” due to the spill of fuel oil on the coast.
Four other small towns in the region have also been placed in an “emergency situation”, according to the Russian authorities.
On Sunday, two Russian tankers, the Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239, ran aground during a storm in the Kerch Strait which separates Russia from the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula which it annexed in 2014.
The first sank, while the second was badly damaged. One person died and 26 crew members evacuated, according to the government.
The Russian government admitted on Monday that the incident had led to the spill of fuel oil, raising fears of the formation of a slick pushed by the winds towards the coasts.
The Telegram channel Baza published videos showing a beach covered in fuel oil, stained and blackened birds, nailed to the ground.
Around 30 birds affected by the disaster were rescued and cleaned of fuel oil by volunteers in Vitiazevo, near Anapa, state news agency Ria Novosti reported on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources for its part denounced on Monday “a threat of large-scale environmental disaster in the Black Sea”.
