AFP, published on Sunday, April 17, 2022 at 8:45 PM
‘No leaks’ detected: Divers on Sunday inspected the hull of the tanker, which sank the day before near Gabès, off the southeastern coast of Tunisia, and found no leaks from the 750-tonne diesel cargo, Tunisian authorities said.
According to the divers, the ship “sunk to almost 20 meters, in a horizontal position and shows no cracks,” the Tunisian environment ministry said in a press release, adding that “no leaks were found on the diesel cargo”.
The team of divers was “accompanied by the captain and the ship’s mechanic, who know the ship’s configuration,” said AFP, Mohamed Karray, spokesman for the Gabès prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation into the causes of the accident.
The oil tanker Xelo, which left the port of Damietta in Egypt and was on its way to Malta, sank on Saturday in Tunisian waters where it had taken refuge the night before due to bad weather conditions.
The 58-meter-long by 9-wide vessel began to take in water in the engine room. Authorities then proceeded to evacuate the seven crew members before the Xelo was sunk at dawn.
In a video from the Ministry of the Environment from Sunday, we only see the tip of a mast emerging from the waves. The military-controlled zone is inaccessible to the press.
– Nice service –
According to Transport Minister Rabie el Majidi, during the rescue, rescuers made sure to “close the holds to prevent diesel leaks, and the divers found they were intact”.
“The situation is not dangerous, the diagnosis is positive, the ship is stable because luckily it sank on sand,” the minister confirmed on Sunday during a press conference in the port of Gabès, with his colleague from the “Environment”.
Floating anti-pollution booms have already been installed on a 200-meter perimeter around the wreck.
But the priority of the authorities remains the pumping of diesel.
It is “very difficult for the divers to locate the exits (of the holds) to perform the pumping,” explained the Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, while minimizing the magnitude of the risks: “750 tons diesel is nothing at all” and “diesel evaporates easily in the sun”.
Authorities said they were studying “the offers received to help them” for pumping, including from abroad.
“The Italian ambassador (to Tunisia, editor’s note) Lorenzo Fanara was approached this Sunday by the Tunisian authorities and the Italian government has immediately decided to send a pollution control vessel and a team of specialized divers,” diplomatic sources said. to AFP.
“The ship will arrive in Tunisian waters on Monday,” she added.
– Investigation of the ship –
While awaiting the pumping of the cargo, the conservation organization WWF has warned of “another environmental disaster” in an area that is a fishing ground for “about 34,000 sailors” and which has suffered from periods of pollution, mainly from the phosphate industry and the presence of an oil pipeline, in recent decades.
Tunisian officials are also interested in the course of the ship, built in 1977 and under the flag of Equatorial Guinea, and its owners: a Turk and a Libyan, Gabès’s prosecutor said.
The “+ bill of lading +, an important document (about the ship’s route and cargo, editor’s note) was left on the ship by the crew,” Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui said.
The Ministry of Transport is trying to “verify the exact nature of the vessel’s activity and route over the past few weeks”.
According to this ministry, the Xelo was stationed in the Tunisian port city 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 recall the proximity of the Gulf of Gabès to Libya, a major oil-producing country whose coasts have been the scene of the hydrocarbon trade in recent years.
