No leak detected… Divers who have inspected the hull of the tanker, shipwreck the day before, off Tunisia’s southeast coast, had not noticed a flow of its 750-tonne cargo of diesel, Tunisian authorities said.
Divers who were able to get to the site thanks to an improvement in the weather noted that the ship “sank to almost 20 meters deep, in a horizontal position and without any cracks,” according to the Tunisian health ministry. †
The team of divers was “accompanied by the ship’s captain and 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.
In an area inaccessible to the press
The oil tanker Xelo, which left Port of Damietta in Egypt and on its way to Malta sank on Saturday in Tunisian waters where it had fled 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.
The priority: diesel pumps
According to Transport Minister Rabie el Majidi, during the rescue, rescuers made sure to “close the holds to prevent diesel leaks and the divers discovered they were intact”.
“The situation is not dangerous, the diagnosis is positive. The ship is stable because luckily it sank on sand,” said the minister on Sunday during a press conference in the port of gabes, with his colleague from the Environment. The authorities’ priority is to pump up diesel to avoid pollution of the site. According to Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui, “it is dangerous but possible”.
It is “very difficult for divers to identify the exits (holds) to perform the pumping,” Rabie el Majidi added, while minimizing the magnitude of the risks: “750 tons of diesel is nothing at all” and “diesel evaporates easily in the sun”. Floating anti-pollution booms were installed on a perimeter of 200 meters around the wreck.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the authorities are “studying the offers received to help them” for pumping, including from abroad. Nearby Italy could provide a ship specializing in maritime accidents, according to media reports.
Asking the ship’s course
Tunisian officials are also interested in the course of the ship, built in 1977 and flying the flag of Equatorial Guinea, and its owners: a Turk and a Libyan, Gabes’s prosecutor’s office 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,” said Minister Leila Chikhaoui.
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 him, from April 4 to 8, the Xelo was stationed in the Tunisian port of Sfax, north of Gabès, “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.
While waiting for the cargo to be pumped, the conservation organization WWF has warned of “another environmental disaster” in an area that is a fishing ground for “about 34,000 sailors” and has suffered from pollution, notably from the phosphate industry and the presence of an oil pipeline in recent decades.
