‘Environmental disaster’ as oil tanker breaks

A SEVERE storm broke a small Russian oil tanker in two off the Ukrainian port of Kerch yesterday, spilling up to 2,000 tonnes of fuel oil in what a Russian official said was an “environmental disaster”.

The same storm in the Black Sea and Azov Sea also sank four freighters, three carrying sulphur and one with a cargo of scrap metal. The heavy seas also cracked the hull of another oil tanker, but the ship was afloat and not leaking.

The sunken tanker, Volganeft-139, had travelled from the Russian port of Azov and was anchored outside Kerch in Ukraine’s eastern Crimea to ride out the weather, when high waves broke its back, media reported.