Odesa national park staff recover nearly 4 kg of fuel oil on coast, likely from Russian tanker accident

In the Odesa region, specialists from the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park collected about 4 kilograms of fuel oil along the coast. It's likely that this oil washed ashore following the Russian tanker accident in the Kerch Strait.

The scientist and head of the research department of the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, Ivan Rusev, reported this.

Rusev stated that for three days, workers surveyed nearly 40 kilometers of the Black Sea coast within the national park to identify areas contaminated with fuel oil.

^{Photo: facebook.com/Ivan Rusev}

"One area 200 meters long and 30-70 centimeters wide was found of freshly spilled fuel oil of small fractions 3-4 millimeters in size on Sunday [January 26 – ed.]. Samples were taken for research in Odesa in a private professional laboratory," the scientist noted.

Currently, there are no longer any areas with fuel oil in the Tuzly Lagoons. However, there are no guarantees it won't reappear, as Ivan Rusev points out, because "millions of small fractions are still drifting in the waters of the northwestern part of the Black Sea."

The ecologist also reported that nearby, the sea washed a rare red-throated loon, a species listed in Ukraine's Red Book, into the fuel oil, but waves eventually carried it back out to sea.

For reference:

Two Russian tankers, "Volgoneft-212" and "Volgoneft-239," were damaged in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait due to bad weather conditions and a strong storm. Between the two tankers, there were a total of 27 crew members, with 13 on one vessel and 14 on the other.

According to Russian sources, the vessel "Volgoneft-212" broke in half due to large waves. Therefore, the fuel oil that was in the tanker began to fall into the sea, and the ship itself with the crew on board began to sink. As it became known later, an hour later the storm hit the Volgoneft-239, and it also began to sink.

In turn, Greenpeace warned of the disaster after the accident of two Russian tankers in the Black Sea.

As Rubryka reported, in the occupied Crimea, more than 400 birds have already been affected by the fuel oil spill from the sunken Russian tankers. They were taken to the Taigan Lion Park and the Yalta Kazka Zoo.

Minister of Ecology Svitlana Hrinchuk confirmed the scale of the oil spill and pollution of the southern coast of Crimea. As the head of the department reported, oil stains were recorded in the images of the Sentinel-1 satellite from December 31.