The sinking of two Russian tankers creates a risk of an oil spill

After an accident in the Kerch Strait, Russian tankers caused a fuel leak, leading to the risk of an oil spill. One sailor died and several crew members were evacuated.

Two Russian oil tankers ran aground Sunday during a storm near annexed Crimea. The accident caused the death of a sailor and a fuel leak into the sea, authorities said.

On Telegram, she adds that this double stranding resulted in “a spill of petroleum products” and that two tugboats and two helicopters were sent as part of a rescue operation.

The two tankers are in the Kerch Strait, which connects Russia to Ukrainian Crimea annexed by Moscow.

On Telegram, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry stressed thata member of the Volgoneft-212 crew had died and 12 others had been evacuated.

According to this source, this ship was “damaged and ran aground”, while the other, whose crew consists of 14 people, was “drifting” before also stranding “80 meters from the shore near the port of Taman” in the Krasnodar region of Russia.

Two investigations have been opened

Videos broadcast by Russian media show one of the ends of the Volgoneft-212 partially submerged and floating vertically.

Eleven evacuated sailors suffering from hypothermia were hospitalized in the city of Anapa, the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamine Kondratiev, said on Telegram.

The evacuation of the 14 sailors still on board the second ship was suspended due to bad weatherthe emergency services announced in the evening.

According to a source with the authorities, cited by the press agency TASS, the two ships transported a total of nearly 9,000 tonnes of fuel oil.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of a working group to “eliminate” this pollution at seaannounced the Kremlin.

The cause of this double grounding has not yet been clarified but two investigations have been opened for “violation of safety rules”.

According to a sea rescue source, interviewed by the Interfax press agency, two hypotheses are possible: an error by the crew in the middle of a storm or overloading caused by the waves on these boats dating from the 1980s and designed for river or sea navigation in calm weather.

Resupply by sea

In the Kerch Strait, a rail and road bridge connects the Crimean Peninsula to Russia but it was attacked several times by kyiv forces, in the midst of the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

These attacks forced Moscow to find other means of supplying this peninsula, notably by sea. At the end of August, a ferry carrying fuel sank in the same strait after being the target of a Ukrainian attack. (tib/ats)

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