Russian oil tankers in distress in Black Sea
President Vladimir Putin has set up a working group to mitigate the impact of the fuel spill, whose extent is still unknown.
Two Russian oil tankers with 29 crew members have been heavily damaged and are now leaking oil in the Black Sea, Russian authorities said on Sunday.
“Today two tankers, Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239, were damaged due to a storm in the waters of the Black Sea,” Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported.
“There are 15 people on board one ship and 14 people on the other. The damage caused an oil spill emergency,” the agency said.
Unverified footage on Telegram appears to show one of the vessels broken in half, with streaks of oil visible on the surface of the water. The incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday in the Kerch Strait waterway separating annexed Crimea and mainland Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a working group to be set up to “organize rescue operations and cleanup works after the oil spill,” his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
Two rescue tugboats and two helicopters have been dispatched. The Russian emergencies ministry said one crew member died.
Both vessels have a loading capacity of about 4,200 metric tons of oil products, according to Reuters.
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