21 December 2009, 18:00
Sochi: divers pump out fuel and oil from sunken ship "Aras-1"
Despite the continuing storm, divers continue pumping fuel from the sunken part of the dry-cargo ship "Aras-1", shipwrecked inshore Sochi.
The ship fanner that has survived the shipwreck still keeps up to 40 tons of diesel fuel and more than 2 tons of oil. Two tanks with ecologically hazardous liquids are on the fanner deck, and two more - in the flooded hold, access in which is extremely complicated.
The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that at present specialists pump oil out of the ship, and two gasoline tank trucks, which were provided on the charitable basis by the companies "Lukoil" and "Rosneft", take out the oil for recycling at the LLC MPP "Ecocentre". According to Sergey Shalay, an employee of this organization, there are technologies capable to convert any hazardous product into something ecologically safe.
Let us remind you that at about midnight on December 20, as a result of a storm, the ship "Aras-1" broke into halves at the external roadstead of the port of Sochi. The fanner section still containing 4 fuel tanks ran into the middle of the groin and considerably damaged it. The crew was 13 persons - nine Russians and four citizens of Ukraine. They were all saved.
The dry-cargo ship "Aras-1" sails under the flag of Moldova, but its owner is the company Nagrand Shipping Co Ltd., registered in one of offshore zones; while the ship operator is the company Transoptimal-Rostov, registered in Rostov-on-Don, centre of the South Federal District (SFD). According to the "Interfax", the technical supervision over the ship is on the classification society "Ukrainian Register of Shipping".
Author: Svetlana Kravchenko Source: CK correspondent
