China raced to contain oil leaking from an Iranian tanker stricken off its eastern coast Tuesday amid warnings the burning ship could spark an environmental disaster.
The Sanchi was carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil when it collided with a cargo ship on Saturday and erupted into flames 160 nautical miles east of Shanghai.
If all the cargo from the Panamanian-flagged 274-metre (899-foot) tanker spills, it would be the biggest oil slick from a ship in decades and could kill marine life across a vast area, analysts have said.
The transport ministry said the vessel was still burning on Tuesday. It released a photo of the Sanchi enveloped in smoke and flames.
"With the ship on fire, it is expected that much of this condensate oil will burn off rather than enter the water," Greenpeace East Asia said in a statement to AFP.
"However, if the ship sinks before the oil burns off, the cleanup procedure would be extremely difficult. What is important now is to understand how much of that oil has burned off, and how much is leaking into the sea."
The Chinese foreign ministry said late Monday that cleaning ships had been sent to prevent "secondary disasters".
Authorities widened the search on Tuesday for 31 missing crew members, with 13 search-and-rescue vessels "carrying out an uninterrupted search within 900 square nautical miles" of the tanker, China's ministry of transport said.
The efforts were hampered by poor conditions at sea, it added, with rescuers battered with rain, wind and waves.
The tanker "is in danger of explosion and sinking, and the toxic gas… is very harmful to rescue workers on the scene," authorities warned Tuesday.
A vessel carrying protective suits, masks and gas testing equipment was sent to the scene Monday evening.
The Sanchi was on its way to South Korea when it collided with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter that was transporting grain.
The Crystal's 21 Chinese crew members were rescued, but most of the 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis from the Sanchi are still missing.
A "preliminary assessment" by China's transport ministry determined that a body found on Monday with a protective garment on it belonged to one of the Sanchi's crew members.
A US Navy aircraft took part in the search on Sunday, scouring a wide area before returning to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.
A South Korean coast guard ship was also dispatched.
The Sanchi belongs to the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Iran's petroleum ministry said, and was transporting the oil to South Korea's Hanwha Total. The ship and its cargo were insured, a statement said.
This is the second accident in less than two years involving a tanker owned by the NITC. In August 2016, an Iranian supertanker and a container ship collided in the Singapore Strait, causing damage to both vessels but no injuries or pollution.
Oil spill disasters over the past five decades
Paris (AFP) Jan 8, 2018 –
An Iranian oil tanker ablaze off China's east coast could spark the latest in a long list of environmental disasters caused by spills:
– Shipwreck calamities –
– ATLANTIC EMPRESS AND AEGEAN CAPTAIN – 1979: The two Greek-registered tankers collide and catch fire off Tobago in the West Indies, spilling an estimated 287,000 tonnes of crude and leading to the death of 30 sailors.
– ABT SUMMER – 1991: Loaded with 260,000 tonnes of crude, the Liberian-registered tanker explodes some 1,300 kilometres (900 miles) off the coast of Angola. The ship burns for three days before sinking with its cargo.
– CASTILLO DE BELLVER – 1983: The Spanish oil tanker runs aground off Saldanha Bay in South Africa, spilling 250,000 tonnes of oil.
– AMOCO CADIZ – 1978: 227,000 tonnes of oil wash up on 400 kilometres (250 miles) of French coastline when the Liberian-registered supertanker sinks off the western tip of Brittany.
– HAVEN – 1991: The Cypriot oil tanker sinks off Italy's Gulf of Genoa after fires destroy most of its 144,000-tonne cargo. The remainder of the oil forms a slick polluting the coast of Liguria in Italy and Provence in France.
– THE ODYSSEY – 1988: The British ship carrying 132,000 tonnes of oil sinks with its 27-member crew in the Atlantic around 1,300 kilometres (900 miles) from the Canadian coast.
– TORREY CANYON – 1967: 121,000 tonnes of oil pollute the coast off southern England, and France after the grounding of the Liberian-registered supertanker.
Other oil tanker shipwrecks may have involved less oil, but still caused major environmental damage. These include the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, the Sea Empress off Wales in 1996, the Erika in France in 1999 and the Prestige in Spain 2002.
– Oil rig spillages –
– 1979: GULF OF MEXICO – Around one million tonnes of oil gush from the Ixtoc-Uno well after an explosion on a rig operated by the Mexican state oil company Pemex. Capping the leak takes nine months.
– 1991: GULF WAR – Around one million tonnes is the estimated spillage when Iraqi forces set fire to Kuwaiti oil wells during the Gulf War. Hundreds of kilometres/ miles of coastline are polluted.
– 2010: UNITED STATES – The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, leaves 11 dead and leads to the spillage of more than 600,000 tonnes of oil.
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