Russian rescue helicopters searched for five missing seamen yesterday after a storm in the northern mouth of the Black Sea, while a slick of oil from a sunken tanker began washing onto beaches.
Rescue officials said three people died in the storm that struck the narrow straits between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea on Sunday, sinking a small oil tanker and at least four freighters and leaving other ships stranded on the shoreline.
Birds seeking shelter on the shore near the center of the storm were covered in a treacly mixture of oil and seaweed - the first evidence of what one Russian official called an "environmental disaster."
The sea was calm again by yesterday but at Novorossiisk, Russia's second biggest port for exports of oil and oil products, officials had ordered tankers not to dock because a second storm was on its way.
Nikolai Lityuk, regional head of Russia's Emergencies Ministry, said the navy had been called in to help with the search and rescue operation, and the clean-up.
Earlier, rescue officials had said they were searching for eight missing seamen but this was revised to five after three bodies were recovered.
"Three helicopters and 11 rescue ships are taking part in the (search) operation," Emergencies Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.
The oil spill came from the Volgoneft-139, a small Russian oil tanker which broke in two during the storm when it was off the Ukrainian port of Kerch.
Officials said it had spilled at least 1,300 tons of fuel oil. In cold weather, the thick, treacly substance is liable to sink to the seabed instead of dispersing, making the clean-up harder.
The tanker was carrying 4,000 tons of fuel oil in total when it was hit by the storm. A spill of over 700 tons is considered large, but the biggest ones run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands.
At the coastal settlement of Ilyich, halfway between Kavkaz and Novorossiisk, about 100 workers were on the beach using shovels and a bulldozer to scrape globules of oil off the sand.
"This oil came in last night, along a 13 km stretch," said Alexander Mikhalkov, foreman of the clean-up crew.
A flock of about 1,000 rails, a species of wetland bird, were huddled on the beach, unable to fly because their feathers were coated with oil. Some were unable to stand.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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