SOUTH AFRICA (13 Sep 2002) -- The Jolly Rubino, the burning RO-RO (Roll-on, Roll-off) ship stuck on a sandbank off the ecologically sensitive St Lucia wetland and estuary in KwaZulu-Natal, is showing signs off breaking up, a KZN Wildlife official said. The area, with its mangroves and abundant wildlife, is a United Nations World Heritage Site. Jeff Gaisford said KZN Wildlife officers, disaster management experts as well as Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism officials had formed a task team to co-ordinate efforts to prevent the spread of the expected pollution that would follow the break-up of the vessel. An oil slick about a kilometre long had already formed in the vicinity of the wreck on Friday. The oil emanates from a ruptured tank on the ship's port side. Gaisford said their focus was now on preventing the pollution of the estuary and the nearby Umfolozi river mouth. The 23-year-old ship ran aground on Thursday afternoon and was now 300m offshore, about 2km north of the Cape St Lucia lighthouse. She has approximately 1100 tons of fuel oil and 225 tons of gas oil on board in addition to unspecified class 3 hazardous cargo. Richard's Bay Port Master Captain Mike Brophy said "class 3" was a description for flammable liquid -- a category which included petroleum and many chemicals. He said the cargo manifest said this included highly-combustible acetone and methanol as well as the highly-toxic chemical phenol, a substance found in resins and household appliances. Phenol is known to cause muscle weakness and tremors, loss of co-ordination, paralysis, convulsions, coma and respiratory arrest. Brophy added that it has been confirmed that 70 containers aboard the vessel had fallen overboard. None of them had been spotted but it could not be presumed that their contents had burned out before they fell into the water or that they had sunk to the sea bottom. As they constituted a possible hazard to ships a navigation warning had been posted. Brophy also cautioned the public that some containers could end up on the beach. "Wherever these containers wash up, people must not touch them as they are extremely hazardous. They must immediately contact authorities instead," he urged. | | Jolly Rubino Smit Marine, which has been contracted to salvage the vessel, was by Friday still not able to put any salvors aboard because of the smoke, steam and high temperatures resulting from the fire which broke in the vessel's engine room on Tuesday. The deck temperature was measured at 300 degrees Celsius. "A member of the salvage team was lowered onto the vessel this morning, however due to the adverse sea and weather conditions as well as the inability of the helicopter to safely manoeuvre between stays, masts and aerials, the situation was deemed life threatening and the attempt to land salvage personnel aborted," the salvors said in a statement on Friday. "The priority of Smit Salvage remains to safely land a team on board the 'Jolly Rubino' and to commence with fire-fighting operations. "Once the on-board fire is under control, a full inspection of the vessel will be undertaken and a plan for the removal of on-board fuel implemented." It was not clear whether the ship could be refloated. She has been badly damaged by the fire, numerous explosions, sea and the grounding itself. The 190-metre, 31262-ton ship has been at the mercy of the wind and currents since Tuesday night when its crew abandoned it on Tuesday after the fire spread out of control. Her crew was rescued by a Portnet helicopter operating from Richard's Bay on Tuesday night. The salvage tug Wolraad Woltemade has arrived in the area while the anchor handler Pentow Service was still on site and monitoring the situation. Also on site was the oil pollution abatement vessel Kuswag I. SOURCE - SAPASCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
