A federal state of emergency has been declared in Russia due to a major oil spill in the Kerch Strait, the Russian Emergencies Ministry announced on Thursday.
According to Minister Alexander Kurenkov, cited by Magyar Nemzet, additional forces and resources from state agencies and state-owned enterprises can now be deployed to the site affected; government reserves can also be used for victims.
Oil is still leaking from the wreckage of two tankers shipwrecked in the Kerch Strait and has already contaminated dozens of kilometers of coastline. The entire coastline of the Krasnodar Territory, some 220 kilometers, is being monitored, and crews are already cleaning up contaminated sand in five areas near the particularly affected port cities of Anapa and Temryuk.
According to the minister’s report, 30,000 tons of contaminated sand have been collected so far and 10,000 people have been mobilized to help clean up.
Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, has stressed the urgency of containing any further contamination and reported that almost 35,000 tons of contaminated sand have been cleared. Equipment to pump out the oil from the wreckage has also already arrived on the scene.
The tankers in question are over 50 years old and were carrying a total of 9,000 tons of fuel oil when they were wrecked on Dec. 15 in a violent storm in the Kerch Strait between the Black and Azov seas. A crew member on one of the ships was killed, and 11 were injured.
Magyar Nemzet reports that an operation team is also on the ground in Anapa to rescue birds, and volunteers have so far managed to save more than 1,300 animals by cleaning oil off of them. According to local environmental organizations, dolphins have also died because of the spill.
