AFP, published Sunday, April 17, 2022 at 8:45 p.m
“No leaks” detected: Divers on Sunday inspected the hull of the tanker that sank near Gabès off the southeast coast of Tunisia the previous day and found no leaks from its 750-ton cargo of diesel, Tunisian authorities said.
According to the divers, the ship “sunk to almost 20 meters in a horizontal position and has no cracks,” Tunisia’s Environment Ministry reported in a press release, adding that “no leak was found on the cargo diesel”.
The diving team was “accompanied by the captain and the ship’s mechanic, who know the configuration of the ship,” Mohamed Karray, spokesman for the Gabès prosecutor’s office, explained to AFP, who launched an investigation into the causes of the accident.
The oil tanker Xelo, which left the port of Damietta in Egypt bound for Malta, sank in Tunisian waters on Saturday, where it had fled the previous evening due to bad weather conditions.
The ship, 58 meters long and 9 meters wide, began to take on water in the engine room. Authorities then evacuated the seven crew members before the Xelo sank at dawn.
In video released by the Environment Ministry on Sunday, we only see the top of a mast emerging from the waves. The zone controlled by the army is closed to the press.
– Sensitive operation –
According to Transport Minister Rabie el Majidi, during the rescue operation, rescuers “made sure to close the holds to avoid diesel leaks and the divers found them intact”.
“The situation is not dangerous, the diagnosis is positive, the ship is stable because fortunately it sank on sand,” affirmed the minister during a press appointment on Sunday at the port of Gabès with his colleague from the ‘environment.
Floating anti-pollution booms have already been installed on a perimeter of 200 meters around the wreck.
But the authorities’ priority remains pumping diesel.
It was “very difficult for the divers to locate the exits (from the holds) to carry out the pumping,” the transport minister explained to the press, while minimizing the extent of the risks: “750 tons of diesel is nothing” and “diesel evaporates easily in the sun”.
Authorities said they are studying offers of help for pumping, including from abroad.
“Italian ambassador (in Tunisia, ed.) Lorenzo Fanara was contacted by the Tunisian authorities this Sunday, and the Italian government immediately decided to send an environmental protection ship and a team of specialized divers,” diplomatic sources told the agency AFP.
“The ship will arrive in Tunisian waters on Monday,” they added.
– Examination of the ship –
Until the cargo is pumped out, conservation organization WWF is warning of “a new environmental disaster” in an area that is a fishing ground for “some 34,000 seafarers” and has suffered particularly from the phosphate industry and the pollution caused by the presence of an oil pipeline in recent decades.
Tunisian officials are also interested in the course of the Equatorial Guinea-flagged ship, built in 1977, and its owners: a Turk and a Libyan, according to Gabès prosecutors.
The “+Bill of Lading+, an important document (about the ship’s track and cargo, ed.) was left on the ship by the crew,” said Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui.
The Department for Transport is trying to “verify the exact nature of the activity of the ship and its route in recent weeks”.
According to this ministry, the Xelo was stationed in the Tunisian port of Sfax, north of Gabès, from April 4 to 8 “to change crews, refuel and carry out light repairs without loading or unloading”.
Local media have recalled the Gulf of Gabes’ proximity to Libya, a major oil-producing country whose shores have been the scene of hydrocarbon trade in recent years.