Maritime Disasters

[hkskyline]

Somali-held tanker may cause oil spill - UN agency

LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A Greek-flagged oil tanker seized by Somali pirates last month could create an "environmental catastrophe" if it is damaged by worsening weather off Somalia, the United Nation's shipping agency said on Thursday.

The Maran Centaurus was sailing from Kuwait to the Gulf of Mexico with a crew of 28 and cargo of two million barrels of crude oil, when it was seized by armed assailants near the Seychelles on Nov. 29 and taken to Somalia.

"Adverse weather conditions and other contributing factors may bring about an accident to the supertanker ... possibly resulting in an environmental catastrophe off the coast of Somalia," the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said in a statement.

The UN's IMO, tasked with the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by vessels, said the hijacked ship was taken to an area off the port of Hobyo in Somalia.

"Weather conditions are said to be changing for the worse in the area which, coupled with reported unsafe anchorage conditions, has led to concerns that the vessel might be damaged by grounding, leading to its cargo being spilled and resulting in serious ecological damage," the IMO said.

Pirates from Somalia have made tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, seizing commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia.

A multinational naval deployment in the area seems only to have driven them to hunt further from shore.

The IMO said its secretary-general Efthimios Mitropoulos was worried about the potential for ecological disaster, in an area of the world "that presently lacked the infrastructure, equipment, resources and expertise to cope with it".

It said Mitropoulos had expressed concerns in a letter to Somali prime minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke that any accident could have repercussions for nearby fishing grounds and a "consequent negative economic impact on the livelihood of the population in the area."

[KiwiGuy]

Wahine Interislander ferry disaster in 1968. It was entering Wellington harbour during a cyclone and was blown onto a reef. It capsized and sank with the loss of 51 lives. The weather was one of two very powerful storms which merged over Wellington creating wind gusts of up to 275km/h. This remains one of the costliest modern ferry disasters in New Zealand history. Today though, it is common for Interislander ferries to sail in bad weather.

[hkskyline]

Passenger ferry sinks in the northern Philippines; 6 bodies recovered, 22 missing
27 December 2009

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A passenger ferry sank in the northern Philippines in a second sea disaster in three days. Six bodies, including three children, were recovered and at least 22 people were missing Sunday.

Search-and-rescue teams rescued at least 60 passengers and crew of the MV Baleno-9 and were scouring the seas for others still unaccounted for, a coast guard report said.

The latest ship disaster came after a Christmas Eve collision between a ferry and a fishing boat in which 24 were missing and feared dead and three bodies had been found by Sunday.

Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo quoted survivors from Sunday's accident as saying the ship took in water from the bow ramp, causing it to list before going under near Verde Island off Batangas province, south of the capital, Manila, late Saturday.

Tamayo said the bodies of three children were among the six bodies recovered.

There were conflicting counts of the number of missing people. The Philippine National Red Cross said 32 remained missing, while the coast guard said 22.

Officials earlier said 63 of the 88 people on board had been rescued, but some names were later found to have been listed twice, said Genalyn Nardo of the coast guard office in Oriental Mindoro province's Calapan city, from where the ferry set sail.

Survivor Eryss Glenn Musni, 14, told The Associated Press that he and his family were on their way home to northern Pampanga province after spending Christmas with his grandparents in central Ilolo city when the accident happened.

He said he became separated from his parents, five siblings and three other relatives when the ship tilted and panicked passengers rushed to jump off, many unable to get life vests.

"Everyone rushed to get out. Some pulled other people, and in the water, some grabbed other people so they would not drown," he said.

Musni said he and two strangers clung to a life preserver for an hour before they were rescued.

He said his mother and sister remained missing but other family members had been rescued.

The crew may have neglected to inspect the ship's doors before setting sail and some may have been left open, said Elena Bautista, head of the Maritime Industry Authority.

Officials said the ship had a capacity of 284 passengers and was not overloaded. Transport and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza ordered the immediate suspension of operations of the ferry's owner, Besta Shipping Lines.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of tropical storms, badly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations.

On Christmas Eve, a wooden-hulled ferry with 73 people on board collided with a fishing vessel near the mouth of Manila Bay.

Twenty-four people remain missing, 46 were rescued and three died in what officials say was an accident likely caused by human error. Coast guard officials said they feared most of those missing were dead, but they held out hope some may have drifted to nearby shores.

Last year, a ferry overturned after sailing toward a powerful typhoon in the central Philippines, killing more than 800 people on board.

In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,341 people in the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

[hkskyline]

220,000 gallons evaporated, dispersed in oil spill
By JOHN McFARLAND, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 25, 4:51 pm ET

DALLAS – The worst Texas oil spill in more than 15 years was contained Monday, and authorities credit a massive emergency response with averting an environmental disaster.

About 462,000 gallons of oil spilled when an 800-foot tanker headed for an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery in Beaumont collided Saturday with a vessel pushing two barges. As of Monday, roughly 220,000 gallons of oil had evaporated, dispersed or been recovered, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

No injuries have been reported. Port Arthur residents were evacuated after the spill while officials tested the air quality. So far only two oil-covered birds have been reported; one of them was captured and cleaned up, and the other flew away.

More than 60 vessels and 550 people from the Coast Guard, the state, the shipping company and others responded to the spill. More than 11 miles worth of the plastic walls known as booms are floating around the spill, and 27 skimmer boats were removing the oil floating on the water.

"This response has helped contain this oil and keep it from becoming a catastrophe," said Texas General Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam. "Had this oil escaped the ship channel, it could have been a catastrophe."

It was the largest spill in Texas since 1990, when a Norwegian tanker spilled 4.3 million gallons about 60 miles off Galveston. The state typically has about 800 spills a year, but nearly all involve less than one barrel, according to the Texas General Land Office.

Two sensitive wildlife areas near the spill remain unaffected by it. The spill is mostly contained in a 2-mile stretch of the Sabine Neches Waterway near Port Arthur, about 90 miles east of Houston. The estuaries and other delicate environments are crucial for fish, shrimp and "everything that lives in the Gulf," Suydam said.

Environmental watchdogs were encouraged by the speedy response but concerned about what air pollutants people nearby were exposed to.

Hilton Kelley, a Port Arthur environmental activist and head of the group Community In-Power and Development Association, said he was near the water Saturday during the evacuation. He said the smell was so overpowering that he had to put on a respirator mask, and that he told two women walking down the street with their coats over their faces to leave because it was dangerous.

"The fumes were just unbearable," he said. "Our main concern is the number of people who might have been impacted over the long term by the fumes."

The evacuation was lifted Saturday night. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was monitoring the air and water quality and said there were no reports of problems with drinking water or wastewater.

"We've learned a lot over the years how to do this right," said Tom "Smitty" Smith of the activist group Public Citizen. "The downsides, of course, are the long-term impacts of the people who are exposed to the emissions."

The shipping channel was closed Monday, and it was unclear when it would reopen, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Larry Chambers said there are currently 13 vessels waiting offshore to get into the waterway and 11 waiting to get out. He said about a dozen tankers move through the waterway each day.

Major refineries have been in this small area of the Gulf Coast since 1901, shortly after the discovery in nearby Beaumont of Spindletop, which at the time was the world's most productive oil field, said Joe Pratt, an oil industry historian at the University of Houston.

The waterway serves four main oil refineries that have a daily combined capacity of nearly 1.2 million barrels. That's about 6 percent to 7 percent of the nation's refining capacity, Pratt said. The refineries also are served by pipelines and typically maintain a reserve.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said the economic impact from closing the waterway could be minimal if it reopens soon.

"If I had to say anything, I think (the closure) will be measured in days, not weeks," Patterson said.

AET Tankers, which owns the Eagle Otome, said it's still unclear exactly how the accident happened that left a 15-foot-by-8-foot hole in the vessel. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard are investigating. The Coast Guard is reviewing radio transmissions from the vessels as part of the investigation but is not releasing information from them yet, Chambers said.

A spokesman for AET Tankers, a Malaysian company with offices in Houston, said the company is cooperating with the investigation and working with the Coast Guard on the cleanup.

"It was our product that spilled and right now, we are the ones responsible for cleaning it up," spokesman Darrell Wilson said.

___

Associated Press Writer Jeff Carlton contributed to this report.

[hkskyline]

Stranded ship 'time bomb' to Great Barrier Reef

SYDNEY, Apr 5 (Reuters) - A stranded Chinese coal ship leaking oil onto Australia's Great Barrier Reef is an environmental time bomb with the potential to devastate large protected areas of the reef, activists said on Monday.

The ship was a "ticking environmental time bomb", Gilly Llewellyn, director of conservation for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Australia, told Reuters.

She said this was the third major international incident involving its owners in four years.

Australian government officials say the stricken Shen Neng I belongs to the Shenzhen Energy Group, a subsidiary of China's state-owned China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, better known by its acronym COSCO.

In 2007, COSCO was linked to a major oil spill in San Francisco bay, while last year it was tied to another in Norway, both of which damaged environmentally sensitive areas.

"We are seeing a concerning pattern potentially associated with this company," Llewellyn told Reuters.

COSCO officials in Australia could not be contacted for comment on Monday.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches along Australia's northeastern coast and is the only living structure on Earth visible from space. It is the world's largest coral reef and a major tourist draw.

As salvagers struggled on Monday to stop the ship breaking up and spilling hundreds of tonnes of oil and thousands of tonnes of coal, environmentalists told Reuters tighter controls on shipping were needed to protect the reef as Australia's energy industry expands.

SHIP NEEDS HELP

Although only a small amount of the 975 tonnes of fuel oil on board has so far leaked, Australian officials have warned the ship is unable to move off the shoal unaided, as its engine and rudder were damaged.

International salvage firm Svitzer has been engaged and has attempted to use tugs to stabilise the vessel, but the head of the government agency overseeing the operation said on Monday the ship was still moving on the reef.

The 230-metre (754-ft) ship was carrying 65,000 tonnes of coal to China when it ran aground on Saturday with 975 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board, a type of oil environmentalists say is particularly sticky and damaging to marine organisms.

The ship was off-course and traveling at full speed when it hit, Australian officials have said. If it broke up as feared, environmentalists said the effects could be devastating.

"We would potentially be looking at an environmental disaster," Llewellyn said."It would be an extremely large spill."

Among the animals affected would be protected species of turtles, dugongs, and marine birds, as well as the sensitive corals, she said.

Chris Smyth, an ocean campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, said with Australia planning to expand its energy industry, its government needs to consider whether ships should be travelling through the reef at all.

"It is going to actually increase shipping traffic substantially and the likelihood of these kinds of incidents occurring in the future," he told Reuters.

This is Australia's third such recent disaster, he said, following two last year, another oil spill off the Queensland coast and a major oil well blowout in the Timor Sea.

It should be clearer within the next few days what the likely scale of this disaster may be, Smyth said. In a worst case scenario, the spilt oil could reach protected areas on the Australian mainland, he said.

On Monday, Queensland state premier Anna Bligh called for tough legal action against the shipowners, saying they could face fines of up to A$1 million ($920,000), with the captain facing a further fine of up to A$220,000.

Investigations are underway by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

A spokeswoman for AMSA told Reuters its investigation would be "exploring breaches and possible offences" under Australian law. Some 23 crew who were on board the vessel when it ran aground so far appeared to be safe, she said.

Rescue officials have said the ship will require a long and careful salvage operation, expected to take weeks.

[brick84]

Shen Neng I was following shortcut. Prime Minister Rudd says it is "scandalous"



April 6, 2010
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was "outrageous" that a ship carrying 65,000 tons of coal and oil 950T has come to find so off course in an area protected from aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the risk of causing an environmental disaster.
The Shen Neng was following a route that would allow a modest time savings at the expense of safety, which included crossing a sea dotted with bassifodali. The move, to hear what he said a local fisherman, is used by at least one ship per day. A spokesman for the Maritime Safety Queensland has confirmed the existence of a channel with sufficient depth to allow ships to pass.
For the Australian Prime Minister at the time there are three problems to be addressed: contain the spill, the ship afloat, dell'l'incidente investigate the causes and how to intervene in the future in order to prevent new ones. The Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Strong said dispersant sprinkled on slick worked well. "The slick was there that responded to treatment and there were no further additional losses.''
The captain of Shen Neng I., Wang Jichang, said there were no injuries among the 23 crew members. Today I started questioning the crew. The owners of the China Ocean Shipping Group Company face a fine of one million Australian dollars (plus $ 250,000 for the master). The incident has re-explode the controversy associated with the exposure of the Great Barrier Reef to the detriment of trade and long environmentalists claim that the ships are handled by knowledgeable drivers in the area.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is carefully assessing the damage and provides valuable tips for a safe Floating Ship.
To deepen.
Grounded Shen Neng 1 May Have tried illegal shortcut through Great Barrier Reef

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has says it is "outrageous" That a ship grounded on the Great Barrier Reef Could be so far off course in a protected area.
The shen Neng 1 is stuck on a reef off the central Queensland and Vessel May Have Been Taking an illegal short cut through a passage Between reefs Which fisherman say is used by at least one ship Every Day.
Mr. Rudd, who surveyed the ship this morning from the air with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said: "From my point of view as Prime Minister of Australia, There Is No Greater Than The natural asset for Australia Great Barrier Reef.
"I take Any threat to the Great Barrier Reef Fundamentally seriously. From where I sit, it is outrageous That Could find Itself Any vessel 12km off course, It Seems, in the Great Barrier Reef.''
The Prime Minister Said the stricken ship Was a "serious threat''to the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Rudd Said to Contain the Priorities Were the oil spill, salvage the vessel, investigated how the incident and look at Happened Whether Any Laws needed to be changed.
"The Practical challenge is to deal with this situation now. The Practical challenge then is to bring to account Those Who Are Responsible,''He Said.
The Shen Neng 1 WAS 15km outside the shipping lane and near a known shortcut Between reefs in Queensland's world famous marine playground When It crashed into coral.
A Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman has Confirmed the Existence of a channel with sufficient working depth to enable ships to pass through - Reef Effectively creating a rat run to save time and money in Their journeys. But Authorities are refusing to discuss Any reason for the Shen Neng 1 Being so far off course. More than two days after the incident, They Have started three Inquiries formally Interviewed but not the crew.
Oil leaked from the stricken That Has Been dispersed coal carrier, the Queensland government says.
Transport department spokesman Mark Strong says dispersant sprayed onto the slick has Worked, and the oil has broken up.
"The slick was there That has Responded to the treatment and There Have Been No Further additional spills,''Mr. Strong Said.
Authorities plan to Have a floating boom around tea Neng Shen 1 sometime today to Contain Any Further leaks.
Chinese news agency Xinhua is reporting Captain Wang Jichang Told the Consul-General in Brisbane Ren Gongping That There Were No Injuries Among the 23 crew members. The consul-general Told the Media Organisation The Captain Said HAD the incident is not serious and Repair is Underway.
No serious risk of breaking up
Authorities believe it's No longer at serious risk of breaking up But Say That Could change if the weather worsens.
Equipment Will Arrive at the scene of the grounded bulk carrier tomorrow it is hoped Which Will Be Able to Contain Further pump oil or oil spills off the ship.
Tugs Have Also Been Brought in to Stabilis the vessel, Which Has Been Dragged by the force of the ocean up to 30m away from Where It first hit Douglas Shoal.
Sonar equipment is expected to paint a Clearer Picture of the damage to Shen Neng 1's engine, rudder and fuel tanks, while the army remains on standby Should oil wash up on nearby beaches.
In Addition to Investigations under way by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and the MSQ, Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett has asked the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to ASSESS the damage and advise on the ship's safe removal.
Rockhampton Regional Council Mayor Brad Carter Said His community wanted to know why Their prized portion of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park WAS Placed in jeopardy.
"I will be looking for a full explanation from federal and state Authorities as to how this situation occurred and how a vessel of this size Could Be so far off course in the Great Barrier Reef," He Said.
Cr Carter Said He Was That It Was disgusted allowed to veer off course in Such a sensitive area, and Called for Those Responsible to face charges.
Their Chinese owners Cosco maintained public silence yesterday But face fines of up to $ 1 million over the incident, while the captain Could Be Handed an individual penalty of up to $ 250,000. The Cosco group did not Respond to Inquiries from The Courier-Mail AMSA spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins But Said Cosco WAS in regular contact with the salvage company Svitzer.
Premier Anna Bligh Said the ship HAD Acted Should it illegally and face the full force of the law. " The crew are yet to be formally Interviewed, and Have remained on board the vessel.
AMSA chief executive Graham Peachey Said WAS the first priority to clean up the damage and salvage the ship, and a Thorough Investigation Would follow. "We will be looking very, very Carefully at this," He Said.
"It is in the wrong place - there's no doubt about that - But The inquiry will Actually Establish why and how it got there and what Offence Also Establish May or May Not Have Been committed Against Commonwealth law."
MSQ yesterday Said They expected good weather forecast for the area Would Stop Further damage to the vessel.
"In the current Conditions We Are Reasonably assured, as have as We Can Be, That There Will Be Catastrophic no break-up of the ship, But if the bad weather Turned It Will Be Another problem," general manager Patrick Quirk Said.

Source:
http://www.news.com.au/national/grou...-1225850138657

[hkskyline]

Trial over Spain's worst oil disaster to begin soon
9 June 2010
The Guardian

Nearly eight years after an oil tanker broke up off the coast of Galicia with 77,000 tonnes of fuel oil on board, the investigation into Spain's worst environmental disaster has finally been completed, lawyers said yesterday.

Organisations representing 14,000 fishermen and others affected by the spill are demanding a nine-year jail sentence for the Prestige's captain, Apostolos Mangouras, and two other crew members, who are accused of committing "crimes against natural resources" and "disregard for the law".

The ship's owner and insurer are being charged with "civil responsibility", though they face fines rather than prison. The state counsel is also claiming euros 1.2bn (pounds 1bn) in damages to the environment and the local economy.

The prosecutor in the case, Alvaro Garcia Ortiz, said yesterday the investigation, summarised in 266,650 pages, had been formally completed on Monday. The "mega-trial", as it has been called, is expected to take place later this year in La Coruna. Under Spanish law, only individuals working for companies, not the companies themselves, may be put on trial.

Garcia Ortiz said the case of the Prestige was complicated by the fact that it sailed under the Bahamian flag, was insured in Britain, and was registered in the US as part of a Swiss fleet that has its headquarters in London, while the registered owner and the 73-year-old captain were Greek.

The fishermen's representatives are also making claims on the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds and against the ship's insurers.

On 13 November 2002, the Prestige sent out a distress call during a storm as it was passing the Galician coast en route from St Petersburg to Gibraltar. One of the tanks in the single-hulled ship was ruptured by the heavy seas, rendering the vessel unstable. Helicopters evacuated 24 of the 27 crew. The captain was later taken off, arrested and released on bail of euros 3m. The authorities towed the ship out to sea, where it broke up on 19 November and sank, continuing to leak oil.

The rias - inlets - of southern Galicia are home to Europe's largest shellfish beds. Fishermen there loaded their boats with wheelie bins and scooped the oil from the sea with buckets. Further north, the rugged coastline, lack of resources and feeble government response made the clean-up operation difficult.

Thousands of people from all over Spain joined local people in scraping the oil from the rocks and beaches. The spill polluted thousands of miles of beaches, stretching from northern Portugal to the Bay of Biscay.

[michael_siberia]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/07/09...id=MLBF0iE38rU

Advances in fighting oil leak could come this weekend

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- A dual-pronged effort to battle the oil belching from a runaway well that has dirtied the Gulf of Mexico shows promise for this weekend, the head of the government's oil spill response team said Friday.

Crews were taking advantage of what retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen called "a weather window that we may not see again this summer" to hook up the Helix Producer, an oil-recovery vessel, and on Saturday they hope to begin replacing the containment cap on the leaking well with a larger, more permanent one the Obama administration is calling the "sealing cap."

Allen said the Helix Producer, which can process 25,000 barrels of oil per day, could be connected Friday to the breached well and be made functional Sunday.

In addition, the containment cap "can be removed quite quickly" and BP could start replacing it with the sealing cap by Saturday, he said. Because crews need special tools to switch the cap, it could be three to four days before they're in a position to put the new cap on, Allen said.

Scientists have estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing daily from BP's breached Macondo well. They have been basing their estimates on high-resolution video and data from acoustic devices used to measure density.

But Allen said that, once the long-term containment cap is in place, scientists will for the first time have the empirical data they need to determine the true flow rate. "I would think once the capping device is on, we would get the most accurate flow rate to date," he said.

Switching the containment cap could increase the amount of oil collected each day to 60,000 to 80,000 barrels, Allen said. Under a new alignment, four vessels would participate in oil recovery, one more than the three currently involved.

However, while the cap is being switched, the 15,000 barrels of oil the Discoverer Enterprise ship has been collecting each day would gush instead into the Gulf.

Allen said Friday he spoke the night before with BP Chief Managing Director Bob Dudley about the Obama administration's request for BP's timeline for oil containment and recovery.

Federal responders expressed optimism Friday about a new aerial weapon in their arsenal. A 178-foot U.S. Navy blimp, the MZ-3A, was flown from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, to be used to survey the disaster area as soon as Saturday, depending on the weather.

Officials said they hope surveys from the blimp will help them cut the time needed to get skimmers to the scene of oil slicks.

"Having something at a low altitude that can stay on scene a very long time is extremely valuable," Allen said. "We are anxious to see how it works."

The first relief well BP is drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could intercept the leaking Macondo well in seven to 10 days, Allen said Thursday.

But the time it will take to seal the well will depend on "where the oil is coming up through, where they can intercept, where they can put the mud in, where they can put the cement plug," he said.

The massive pollution caused by the spill has taken a toll on Gulf Coast residents and businesses.

"There's a strain on the community of the future; there's a strain on the community of the present, not being able to pay the bills that they have," Plaquemines Parish Councilman Don Beshel said.

The strain is also hitting the city of New Orleans. In Mayor Mitch Landrieu's first State of the City address Thursday, he said the crisis poses "daunting challenges" to his city.

"We do not know when the oil will stop gushing or what the final impact will be on our environment or our economy," he said. "We can feel that our entire way of life is threatened -- from the fishermen in the Gulf to the waitress at Felix [Restaurant and Oyster Bar] to the tour-bus operator on Decatur, our eyes are wide open and every one of us knows what is at stake."

He said he is waiting for answers from BP about a request for $75 million to fund tourism marketing and programs to train 500 New Orleans residents to work in the cleanup effort. "What people really want is the opportunity to work," Landrieu said.

[brick84]

Adriatic Sea incident between merchant ship and ferry in Italy
Thurs 20/10/2011


Adriatic ferry collision with cargo ship sinks in the Adriatic adriaticoNave transport: unfortunately there is already talk of a victim and a few scattered at sea.

It is this morning, October 20th, the news of the accident occurred in the Adriatic Sea to a merchant ship direct to Montenegro, flying the Maltese flag, according to the GR1, from Turkey according to the newspaper online Enet.gr.
The Albanian authorities announced that a sailor was killed, while five more are still missing, because of the cargo ship collided with a ferry that operates between the Albania - Italy. The "The Queen" sank immediately after the collision with the ferry "Ankara", around midnight, Italian time, about 30 km away from the Albanian port of Durres, 10 miles from the Italian territorial waters.

The route of the ferry to Italy's Adriatic Ferry Company has continued regularly in the direction of Bari, two sailors were rescued and placed no reports of any injured on the ferry, due to the impact with the cargo ship.
The reasons for the crash have not yet been established, although they are already started the research of the causes hours of the incident, as well as sailors missing after the sinking. The Coast Guard received the alarm signal by satellite from the same merchant ship sank and promptly intervened and passenger ferry had already done some of the rescue of 10 sailors who made up the crew of the small boat merchant.


http://notiziefresche.info/mare-adri...a_post-126737/

[brick84]

New Zealand, grounded ship breaks
It is feared an environmental disaster





http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo....=HOME_NELMONDO

[khoojyh]

Omg....

[Kevin_01]

Costa Concordia today

[Coccodrillo]

[brick84]

italian forum:

Originally Posted by Nadir

location of disaster:




Isola del Giglio (Tuscany)

[firoz bharmal]

So sad to hear news... heartily condolence to family who lost their loved ones....

[AMasera]

[hakz2007]

CAMBODIAN CARGO SHIP ON FIRE OFF JAPAN'S KOBE

OSAKA, JAPAN Jan. 19 (NNN-Xinhua) -- A Cambodian-registered cargo ship, with nine crew members, seven Chinese and two from Sri Lanka and Myanmar, on board, caught fire off the coast of the western Japanese city of Kobe on Friday, according to Japanese maritime authorities.

The fire broke out on the freighter "CHUN XING" in waters several kilometers south off shore of the city at around 9:30 a.m. local time, the Japanese Coast Guard said.

Read more

[hakz2007]

US Navy: Ship stuck in Philippines used faulty map

MANILA, Philippines -- An inaccurate map that mislocated a marine sanctuary may have caused a U.S. Navy minesweeper to run aground on a coral reef in the Philippines this week, the Navy said Saturday

All 79 officers and crew of the USS Guardian were taken off the ship for safety reasons after it struck the reef with its bow at 2 a.m. Thursday. The Navy's Pacific Fleet, based in Hawaii, said Saturday that its ships along with several support vessels continued to conduct salvage operations that minimize environmental effects to the reef.

Read more