The Black Sea just got a lot blacker. Thousands of tonnes of oil and sulphur have been spilled as a result of storms last weekend that sank at least 10 ships in the Strait of Kerch, a channel linking the Black Sea with the smaller Sea of Azov to the north.
The oil tanker Volganeft-139 ran aground and split open, releasing half of its 4800-tonne load of heavy fuel oil. Two other freighters sank and between them released 6500 tonnes of sulphur. Greenpeace Russia fears the heaviest oil could sink and contaminate the environment for years to come. 鈥淏ottom pollution destroys spawning grounds and hinders fish spawning and reproduction,鈥� it said in a statement issued on 12 November.
Jim Readman of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK monitored pollution in the Black Sea in 1995. Because the Black Sea is uniquely bereft of oxygen below about 150 metres, no one knows how oil will behave in such conditions, he says. For the same reason, it is difficult to predict the impact of the sulphur spill. 鈥淭here are no precedents for this type of incident,鈥� he says.
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Meanwhile in the US, a South Korean container ship, the Cosco Busan, crashed into San Francisco鈥檚 Bay Bridge in thick fog. Some 180 tonnes of oil escaped, and a criminal investigation is under way to establish how the collision occurred.
The US Coast Guard has been criticised for failing to grasp the serious nature of the spill 鈥� the worst in the area for 20 years.
