Oil spill in the Black Sea worse than previously known

Moscow – The wreck of two oil tankers off the Russian coast in the Black Sea has apparently caused greater damage than Russian authorities admit. As reported by "Spiegel," toxic lumps of oil are still washing up on the shore around seven months after the accident. Thousands of liters of oil remain in the capsized parts of the ships and have not yet been pumped out. There are also indications that parts of the cargo may have been misdeclared. This suggests that the tankers may not have been carrying only the comparatively light M-100 heavy fuel oil, as stated, but far more toxic and difficult-to-degrade heavy fuel oils. Crucial results from the approximately 8,000 samples of the washed-up oil taken by the Russian Consumer Protection Agency have not been published. The reconstruction of shipping routes suggests that at least one of the unoccupied oil tankers may have been carrying particularly harmful heavy fuel oil in Rostov-on-Don. The news magazine's research in the vicinity of a refinery a few kilometers away also points to this. There is speculation that the tankers may have been intended to load a larger ship belonging to the Russian shadow fleet. These ships are used to ship barely processed Russian heavy fuel oil around the globe to conceal its origin. The more than 50-year-old oil tankers got into distress and capsized in mid-December in heavy seas in the Kerch Strait between the Russian mainland and the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow. A crack in the hull of the "Volgoneft 212" split in two and sank. The second tanker, the "Volgoneft 239," also broke apart; its stern ran aground barely 50 meters off the coast. The Russian government has already removed 170,000 tons of contaminated sand from the Black Sea region affected by the oil spill and has now closed 150 beaches. Nevertheless, residents report that people continue to swim on the beaches. Environmentalists allege that they are being left in the dark about the actual dangers and composition of the oil scum.