Clean-up of history’s biggest oil spill

– Chinese ships scrambled to clean up a massive oil spill yesterday after an Iranian tanker sank off China, raising fears of devastating damage to sea life.

The Sanchi, carrying 136 000 tons of light crude oil from Iran, went under on Sunday after a new and massive fire erupted, sending a cloud of black smoke as high as one kilometre above the East China Sea.

The bodies of only three of the 32 crew members have been found

Beijing

since the vessel collided with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, on January 6, sparking a fire that Chinese rescue ships struggled to extinguish.

Iranian officials said there was no hope of finding survivors among the crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis.

The search and rescue effort was cancelled and a clean-up began after a fire on the sea surface was finally extinguished yesterday, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Two ships sprayed chemical agents aimed at dissolving the oil, CCTV said. The spill covers 129 square kilometres.

Alaska-based oil spill consultant Richard Steiner called it “the single largest environmental release of petroleum condensate in history”.

On Sunday, CCTV cited Zhang Yong, a senior engineer with China’s State Oceanic Administration, as playing down environmental concerns. –