ICG races to prevent oil spill near Kerala: A breakdown of what happened and efforts undertaken to ward off grave ecological threat
NEW DELHI : The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has ramped up its efforts to deal with a potential ecological threat that may arise due to the sinking of a cargo ship off the Kerala coast in the India Ocean. A Liberian cargo ship, MSC ELSA lll, bound for Kochi capsized near Alappuzha off Kerala coast in the early hours of Sunday (25th May) causing the concerns of oil spill reaching the shores of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
“Pollution response operation is still going on. Apart from three ships, a dedicated pollution control vessel Samudra Prahari was also mobilized from Mumbai. That the oil spill is only in patches, not continuous, is a feat,’’ said the Defence spokesperson in Kochi.
Captain Abdul Kalam Azad, nautical advisor to Government of India and Director General of Shipping Shyam Jaganathan told media that 50 containers have been traced across seven sites in Kerala.
“Efforts underway to retrieve them within two days. The Directorate General of Shipping and the State Disaster Management Authority are working closely, with volunteers aiding the coastal cleanup. Oil recovery, retrieval of drifting containers and removal of beached containers are on the top of priority. July 3 has been set as a deadline for oil recovery,” he said.
Azad said within six hours of the incident, the directorate had convened a meeting with all stakeholders and that eight interagency meetings had been held since then. “Indian Coast Guard’s swift action prevented any major oil spill,” he said.
Officials said the capsized ship had 12 containers with calcium carbide. Of these, five containers had fallen off into the sea, but they haven’t beached anywhere.
The containers with calcium carbide were arranged in the hull of the ship and hence they had gone down the sea along with the ship. The seabed will be scanned to recover these containers, officials said.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) director Dr T M Balakrishnan Nair Wednesday confirmed that there were traces of oil along Alappuzha coast. “Our six-member team has found small patches of oil slick along the coast. These are bunker oil used in ships. As the oil spill has been contained almost, we do not expect a massive oil slick. However, it would continue to appear in southern Kerala coast in the coming days also. Everything depends upon how much oil has leaked out from the ship,” he said.
On the impact of marine life, Dr Balakrishnan said it would depend upon the quantity of the oil being oozing out from the ship. “The direction of the wind and the current also decide on the impact and spread of oil slick during the monsoon season, which is the breeding period for many fish varieties,” he said.
Meanwhile, a high-level meeting attended by officials of various departments was held in Thiruvananthapuram to address the environmental issues emerging from the ship mishap.
Besides empty containers, nurdles — small plastic pellets used for making products — have also got deposited along several places in the southern coast, officials said.
State pollution control board chairperson S Sreekala said the board had decided to conduct a drone survey to identify the deposits of plastic pellets in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram coast.
“The shipping firm has been alerted about it. Our offices in association with the district collectors in the two districts will deploy volunteers to clean the coast of nurdles,” she said.
State fisheries minister Saji Cherian said officials were told to examine the quality of fish along the southern and central Kerala coast.
Source : Indian Express
