China Cleaning 400 Tonne Oil Spill With 21 Ships

After a tanker and bulker collision left an oil spill in the Yellow Sea in China, Chinese authorities have accelerated efforts to clean it up. A crew started working to contain the oil spill immediately after the incident on Tuesday.

However, on Thursday, the plan had been hampered due to bad weather and strong winds. The authorities needed to remove the ships and equipment along with the cargo of the stricken oil tanker, anchored at Qingdao port.

On Friday the weather cleared up to make it possible to remove the tanker’s bitumen cargo. In the meantime, the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration had increased the numbers of ships used for cleaning the oil spill to 21.

Image Credits: @suezmaxdaily / Twitter

In these 3 days, 100s of tonnes of oil have spilt into the waters of Yellow Sea as the dense fog remained. Officially, all ships had been prohibited from coming near to the stricken tanker and maintain a 10 nautical mile distance from the vessel.

Although conditions have changed in favour of the cleanup, authorities have issued a warning about delays due to a possible unfavourable weather change.

Originally the spill had been estimated to be 500 tonnes but now officials have found it to be 400 tonnes. The oil spill had happened when anchored Liberia flagged oil tanker A Symphony collided with the Bulker Sea Justice on Tuesday.

The collision had heavily damaged the cargo tanks and the ballast tanks of the oil tanker, causing an oil spill of its bitumen cargo.

Reference: wionews.com

Source: Maritime Shipping News