Risk of explosion for oil tanker ablaze off China

AN IRANIAN oil tanker ablaze off the Chinese coast is at risk of exploding or sinking, authorities said yesterday, as they reported there was no sign of survivors 36 hours after the vessel erupted in flames.

The huge fire still raged around the stricken ship, which had been carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil, with thick black smoke billowing from the vessel and the surrounding sea.

Rescuers attempting to reach the crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis were being beaten back by toxic clouds, China’s Transportation Ministry said.

The Panamanian-flagged 274-metre tanker Sanchi is “in danger of exploding or sinking”, the ministry said.

State broadcaster CCTV posted a video on Twitter showing the fire seem- ingly under control as a second vessel sprayed it with a water cannon.

Rescuers had recovered one unidentified body as yesterday afternoon, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said during a regular press briefing.

“Conditions . . . are not that favourable for search and rescue work,” he said, adding “we are also investigating how to prevent any secondary disaster”.

The accident happened on Saturday evening 160 nautical miles east of Shanghai. The tanker, operated by Iran’s Glory Shipping, was heading to South Korea when it collided with a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship, the CF Crystal, carrying 64,000 tonnes of grain.

Ten government vessels and “many fishing ships” were helping with the ongoing rescue and clean up effort, the Transportation Ministry said, adding that a South Korean coast guard ship was also on the scene.

As Chinese authorities raced to contain the ship’s leaking oil, experts expressed fear that the accident was poised to create a massive environmental disaster.

Greenpeace said it was “concerned about the potential environmental damage that could be caused by the 1 million barrels of crude oil on board”.

If all of the Sanchi’s cargo spills, it would be the biggest oil slick in decades. By comparison, in the sixth-worst spill since the 1960s, the Odyssey dumped 132,000 tonnes some 700 nautical miles off Canada’s Nova Scotia in 1988, according to figures from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation.

“It’s very possible this will kill off marine life across a wide area,”Wei Xianghua, an environmental expert at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said.