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30,000 birds dead after Black Sea oil spill
By agencies
Last Updated: 7:01pm GMT 13/11/2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/13/easpill113.xml

More than 550,000 gallons of fuel oil have now spilled into straits connected to the Black Sea in what Russian officials are calling an environmental catastrophe.

In pictures: Ferocious storm splits oil tanker in two
The oil from a tanker cut in two during a storm at the weekend has killed an estimated 30,000 birds and there are warnings the effects of oil sinking to the sea bed could linger for years.


A dead bird covered in oil is washed up on the shore, 30,000 are feared to have died

Environmentalists blamed the spill on official negligence which allowed oil transport ships to use outdated and inadequate equipment.

"It's a long-expected disaster," environmentalist Sergei Golubchikov said in Moscow. "We could lose the Black Sea if we go on this way."

Authorities said 500 Russian soldiers had been mobilised to clear up the spill, however high winds continued to hamper rescue efforts.

Thick fuel oil deposits could be seen clogging the beaches around Port Kavkaz, a commercial hub some 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) south of Moscow and which was the place worst affected by the storm.

advertisementOil-soaked cormorants struggled in the polluted water as rescue workers shovelled away the oil.

Eleven ships sank or ran aground during the weekend storm including one freighter carrying sulphur. The bodies of three crewmen from the freighter have been recovered and five more are still missing.

The Kerch Strait linking the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea is an important site for migrating birds on their way to and from the Baltic.


Map of the location
Yelena Vavila, an expert with the regional environmental monitoring agency, warned of "increased concentration of oil in the water for at least five years."

Regional Gov. Alexander Tkachev said the damage to fisheries was "so great that it's hard to assess. It can be equated with an ecological catastrophe".
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Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Russian state environmental safety watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, said the most important task now is to build a dam to prevent the slick from floating into the Sea of Azov.

"We have a real chance to save the ecosystem of the Sea of Azov," he said.

En contaminación…OPC es la solución…