RUSSIA: Russian and Ukrainian leaders meet to discuss the oil spill polluting Black Sea beaches

Record ID: 345140

  • Title: RUSSIA: Russian and Ukrainian leaders meet to discuss the oil spill polluting Black Sea beaches
  • Date: 14th November 2007
  • Summary: STATE EMERGENCY AGENCY OFFICERS WORKING AT CLEAN-UP OPERATION HEADQUARTERS
  • Embargoed: 29th November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA5SUDWQ9L8HXNCMLINCG4U08UX
  • Story Text: Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovich met on Tuesday (November 13) to discuss the situation in the Kerch Strait where a tanker with full oil broke in heavy storm on Sunday.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier instructed Zubkov to fly to the scene of the disaster to oversee efforts to clean up an oil slick that coated beaches with a thick black sludge and left birds poisoned and blinded.
    "I would like to thank you for your help in rescuing our sailors. I think it is very important we would like to thank you for the help you gave us," Zubkov told Yanukovich at the start of the meeting.
    "From our point of view it is very important that we make sure the situation is transparent, we should inform both the population in Ukraine and Russia and we should avoid politicising it too much,"
    Yanukovich answered.
    Officials said 2,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil had now escaped from a tanker which broke up in a once-in-a-century storm that also swamped other ships and drowned at least three seamen.
    Columns of earth-movers and dump trucks were sent to the affected stretches of beach to clean up the oil, but plans to use special vessels to scoop up oil from the water were put on hold because of a new storm warning.
    The weather also grounded helicopters searching for five seaman missing since Sunday's storm at the northern mouth of the Black Sea, which also sank four freighters and left other ships crippled. The bodies of three seaman have been recovered.
    Officials had previously said 1,300 tonnes of fuel oil had leaked from the Volgoneft-139, a small tanker which broke into pieces during the storm.
    Dead and dying seabirds could be seen all along the coast. Their feathers covered in oil, many were unable to move and those that could squatted in the sand or blundered blindly across roads and into the path of traffic.
    There were also concerns that another tanker damaged in the storm could leak oil, and about possible leaks from a freighter carrying sulphur. The spill was near Russia's border with Ukraine.
    Officials had previously said 1,300 tonnes of fuel oil had leaked from the Volgoneft-139, a small tanker which broke into pieces during the storm.
    Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the state environmental agency Rosprirodnadzor, said the figure had been revised to 2,000 tonnes.
    "Our main ecological problem is from the fuel oil spill," he told reporters in the port of Kavkaz, where the clean-up operation has set up its headquarters.
    "We have two ecological problems today -- the fuel oil in the water ... and also heavy pollution of the (shore)," he said.
    The worst devastation from the storm was in the narrow Kerch Straits that divide the Azov Sea from the Black Sea.
    Mitvol said he wanted to build barriers and dams across parts of the Kerch Straits to prevent the oil spreading.
    Alexander Tkachyov, governor of the Black Sea Krasnodar region, on Monday said the damage caused by the spill amounted to an ecological catastrophe.
    There were also concerns that another tanker damaged in the storm could leak oil, and about possible leaks from a freighter carrying sulphur. The spill was near Russia's border with Ukraine.
    Russian meteorologists said winds during Sunday's storm had reached 30 metres (100 feet) per second, speeds that are usually only recorded once in a century.
    Zubkov flew to the Black Sea coast earlier on Tuesday to oversee the clean up efforts.
    Police barred foreign reporters from going to Kavkaz, saying it was in a sensitive border zone.
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