No leak detected… Divers Sunday inspecting the hull of the oil tanker wrecked the day before off the south-east coast of Tunisia found no leak from its cargo of 750 tons of diesel, Tunisian authorities said.
Divers who were able to get to the site thanks to an improvement in the weather found that the ship “sunk to almost 20 meters, is lying horizontally and shows no cracks,” according to the Tunisian Ministry of Health.
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 public prosecutor’s office, explained to AFP, which launched an investigation into the causes of the accident.
In an area inaccessible to the press
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.
Priority: pump diesel
According to Transport Minister Rabie el Majidi, during the rescue 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,” said the minister at a press conference on Sunday in the port of Gabès with his environmental colleague. The authorities’ priority is pumping diesel to avoid polluting the site. According to Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui, it is “dangerous but possible”.
It was “very difficult for divers to identify the exits (holding rooms) to do the pumping,” Rabie el Majidi added, while minimizing the magnitude of the risks: “750 tons of diesel is nothing at all” and “diesel easily evaporates.” Sun”. Floating anti-pollution booms have been installed within a 200 meter radius of the wreck.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the authorities are checking “the offers of help” for pumping, including from abroad. According to media reports, nearby Italy could provide a ship specializing in maritime accidents.
Questions about the course of the ship
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 trajectory and cargo of the ship, ed.) was left on the ship by the crew,” said 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 him, the Xelo was stationed in the Tunisian port of Sfax north of Gabes from April 4 to 8 “to change crew, 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.
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 “about 34,000 seafarers” and has been particularly polluted by the phosphate industry, and its presence at an oil pipeline, in recent decades.