No oil spill from sunken ship till date: Coast Guards

“As on now, there has been no harmful leakage, or no cargo coming out of the ship. The marking is yet to be done, but an orange buoy has been positioned near the ship which can also be a marker,” he told media persons here on Wednesday.

The buoy has been arranged by the ship owners- Shining Ocean Limited, Hong Kong- which is prepared to take any emergency steps regarding the oil spillage.

In the meantime, the vessels of Coast Guards are also on continuous vigil, the Commandant added.

Deputy Commissioner-in-Charge Prabhakar Sharma said the entire responsibility of surveillance has been assigned to the Coast Guards.  He said a meeting of top officials conducted by Director General - Shipping in Mumbai on July 27 discussed in detail the plan of action as how to go about with preventing oil spillage or emptying the cargo without harming the marine environment.

“The insurance agency of the sunken ship has agreed that all expenses of the salvage operations will be looked after by it if any company takes up the task,” he added.
ABCO Trading Company in Kottara Chowki has been identified as the local agency through which the Japan-based P&I Services will maintain all correspondence regarding its responsibility of taking preventive steps against the possible oil spillage, Sharma said.
Deputy Director General of Shipping (Technical) Capt Jayakumar has been appointed as the investigating officer, to probe into the causes for the accident.

Untill all investigations are over, the rescued crew will be under the custody of the district administration. However, they have not been arrested, he said.

He appealed the localites including fishermen to inform the Fisheries Department or the Coast Guards or the district administration in case they come across any kind of pollution in the sea.

It may be recalled that the ship, Asian Forest, which sailed out from New Mangalore Port carrying 13,600 MT of iron ore fines to Zhavgjiagang in China started to list on July 17 and later sank on July 18. Apart from the wreckages, about 366 metric tones of fuel oil and 45 tones of diesel has to be removed from the sunken vessel.

DH News Service