Body found as fears mount stricken tanker may explode
Print Edition
RESCUE crews wrestled to bring a blaze on an Iranian oil tanker off China’s east coast under control yesterday as fire raged for a second day following a collision with a grain ship, while the body of one of the 32 missing crew members was found on board.
The fate of the remaining 31 sailors is not known.
Concerns were growing that the tanker, which hit a freight ship on Saturday night in the East China Sea and burst into flames, might explode and sink, the China Central Television said yesterday, citing experts on the rescue team.
Poor weather conditions continued to hamper the rescue work, said Lu Kang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry.
The size of the oil spill from the ship and the extent of the environmental harm were not known, but the disaster has the potential to be the worst since 1991 when 260,000 tons of oil leaked off the Angolan coast.
The remains of one of the 32 mariners on board was found yesterday afternoon, Iranian officials confirmed.
Mohammad Rastad, head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying that the body had been sent to Shanghai for identification.
The Sanchi tanker run by Iran’s top oil shipping operator, National Iranian Tanker Co, collided with the CF Crystal on Saturday about 160 nautical miles from Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtze River.
CCTV yesterday showed footage of a flotilla of boats dousing the flames with water as plumes of thick dark smoke continued to billow from the tanker.
“The Chinese government takes maritime accidents like this very seriously, and has already dispatched many search and rescue teams to the scene to carry out search and rescue,” said Lu.
China sent four rescue ships and three cleaning boats to the site, South Korea dispatched a ship and a helicopter, while a US Navy military aircraft searched an area of about 12,350 square kilometers for crew members.
The Shanghai Maritime Bureau’s navigation department said the collision did not affect traffic in and out of Shanghai or ports along the Yangtze River.
The Panama-registered tanker was sailing from Iran to South Korea, carrying 136,000 tons of condensate, an ultra-light and highly volatile crude. That is equivalent to just under 1 million barrels.
The freight ship, which was carrying American grain, suffered limited damage and the 21 crew members, all Chinese nationals, were rescued.
China’s transport ministry said the CF Crystal was being taken to the port of Luhuashan, just south of Shanghai, where authorities will start an investigation into the cause of the incident.
Bad weather conditions made it hard for the rescue crews to get access to the tanker, but toxic gas from the burning oil posed a major risk. When condensate meets water, it evaporates quickly and can cause large-scale explosion as it reacts with air and turns into a flammable gas, the transport ministry said yesterday.
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