MOSCOW (Reuters) – Authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region on Wednesday declared a state of emergency across the region, saying oil was still washing ashore 10 days after two dilapidated vehicles ran aground.
Oil from ships hit by a storm on December 15. One of the ships split in half, the other ran aground.
The pollution, which covered the sandy beaches in and around Anapa, a popular summer resort, has caused major problems for seabirds and everything from dolphins to porpoises and more than 10,000 people have been trying to clear it.
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Veniamin Kondratiev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said in a statement that he decided to declare a state of emergency for the entire region because oil is still polluting the coast in Anapa and Temryuk regions.
He has previously declared a state of emergency at the municipal level.
“Initially, according to the calculations of scientists and experts, a large mass of fuel oil should remain under the Black Sea, which would allow it to be collected in the water,” Kondratiev wrote in the Telegram messaging application.
“But the weather dictates its conditions, the air warms and the oil products rise to the surface. As a result, they are carried to our beaches.”
Separately, the crisis center focused on the clean-up said that the bow of one of the tanks – Volgoneft-239 – was found underwater and that divers will check if there is any leakage of oil products from it as soon as the weather conditions. allowed.
In total, more than 256 square kilometers of the coastal area have been surveyed and 25 tons of oil sludge has been collected, the same agency said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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