Russian tankers sunk off the coast of temporarily occupied Crimea can carry up to 5 thousand tons each.
The international environmental organization Greenpeace has warned of the possibility of a large-scale man-made disaster in the Black Sea due to a spill of Russian oil products. The organization confirmed this in a comment to DW on Sunday, December 15.
According to the organization, the Russian tankers that sank off the coast of the temporarily occupied Crimea can carry up to 5 thousand tons of oil products each.
“If such a quantity of oil ends up in the sea, this accident could become one of the biggest disasters in the Black Sea,” the statement said.
Greenpeace claims that Russian tankers turned off their identification systems 12 days ago. The organization called on the Russian authorities to take all possible measures to reduce the impact on the environment.
The statement also recalled the accident of a Russian Volgoneft-class tanker in November 2007 in the area. At the time, the ship was carrying 4,800 tons of fuel oil, of which about 1,600 tons ended up in the sea, polluting tens of kilometers of coastline on both sides of the strait.
Greenpeace stressed that the wrecks were built in the 1980s as river tankers, but were later converted to go to sea. According to The Moscow Times, the storm may have caused excessive stress on the ship’s hulls, leading to the disaster.
Over the past 30 years, 1,097 people have died in such tankers, the publication notes.
Earlier it became known that two Russian tankers – Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 – sank in the Kerch Strait a few kilometers from the coast.
Also in the Black Sea off the coast of the Krasnodar Territory, the Seamark ship under the flag of the Comoros Islands was destroyed. The wave height at the site of the accident in the Black Sea reached three meters. All 11 crew members were rescued.
The ship crashed into a bridge span in Rostov
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.