A Filipino crew member was confirmed to have been killed in an explosion in the engine room (Reuters)
Colombo, Sri Lanka:
A Panama-registered tanker burned out of control for a second day off Sri Lanka on Friday, sparking fears of a new oil spill in the Indian Ocean.
The Sri Lankan Navy and the Indian Coast Guard fired water cannons as an air force helicopter dumped water on the drifting New Diamond.
More ships from the Indian navy were heading to the scene to help fight the fire at the tanker carrying 270,000 tons of crude and 1,700 tons of diesel.
A Filipino crew member was confirmed dead in an explosion in the engine room on Thursday, prompting the alert, the Sri Lankan navy said.
The other 22 crew members, five Greeks and 17 Filipinos, were removed from the 330-meter (1,080-foot) ship and the fire had not spread to the cargo as of mid-morning Friday, authorities said.
The ship was heading from Kuwait to the port of Paradip in eastern India when it issued a distress signal 60 kilometers (38 miles) off the east coast of Sri Lanka.
As the fire grew, the wrecked vessel approached about 10 kilometers ashore, Sri Lankan officials said.
The Indian Coast Guard said there was a six-foot crack in the New Diamond’s hull about 10 meters above the waterline.
Both India and Sri Lanka have deployed reconnaissance aircraft to track the ship, authorities said. However, the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Center said there was no immediate danger of a spill.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” DMC director Sudantha Ranasinghe told AFP. “The fire has not spread to the cargo. Once the fire is out, the ship will be towed into deeper water.”
He said authorities were considering a ship-to-ship transfer of the crude before rescuing the tanker.
– Maldives fear disaster –
The vessel is larger than the Japanese bulk carrier MV Wakashio, which crashed into a reef off Mauritius in July and spilled more than 1,000 tons of oil into the island’s crystal clear waters.
Sri Lanka’s neighbor Maldives has expressed concern that a possible New Diamond oil spill could cause serious environmental damage.
The Maldives is dependent on fishing and tourism and the country has one of the best coral ecosystems in the world.
The Maldivian minister in the president’s office, Ahmed Naseem, called for precautionary measures in the archipelago of 1,192 coral islands in the Indian Ocean.
The Maldives is located about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) southwest of Sri Lanka.
“Maldives needs to watch this oil spill carefully and take every precaution to prevent it from reaching its shores,” Naseem said on Twitter. “This could be a huge disaster.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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