Winds, high waves stop rescue of Iranian oil tanker

Flames and poisonous gas keep South Korean rescuers away from tanker

BEIJING: Lashing winds, high waves and toxic gases are hindering dozens of rescue boats struggling to locate missing sailors from a stricken oil tanker in the East China Sea and to extinguish a fire that has burned for the past three days on the ship.

The poor conditions, with strong winds, rain and waves as high as 3 metres (10 feet), frustrated efforts to tame the fire and search for the 31 remaining tanker crew members, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Tuesday.

The flames were forcing the South Korean Coast Guard’s search and rescue team to stay as far as 3 miles (4.8 km) away from the tanker, two South Korean officials said.

The body of a crew member was found on Monday in the water near the tanker, China’s transport ministry said.

It had been handed over to the civil affairs bureau.

Concerns were growing that the tanker may explode and sink while a flotilla of 13 search and rescue vessels comb a 900-square-nautical-mile (3,100 sq km) area around the ship for the crew. The tanker hit a freight ship on Saturday night in the East China Sea, burst into flames and has been spilling oil.

The tanker Sanchi (IMO:9356608), run by Iran’s top oil shipping operator, National Iranian Tanker Co, collided with the CF Crystal (IMO:9497050), carrying grain from the United States, about 160 nautical miles (300 km) off China’s coast near Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta.

The Sanchi was carrying 136,000 tonnes of condensate, an ultra-light crude oil that becomes highly volatile when exposed South Korea.

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 tonnes of oil leaked off the Angolan coast.

“We can’t grasp the level contamination at this moment.

The cargo is still on fire, so it is hard to figure out if oil is being spilled,” Park Sung-dong, an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said. to air and water, of to oil