MV Wakashio – The Japanese owned Ship was stuck at Pointe d’Esny in late July. The ship started leaking oil into the Indian Ocean, last week. The clean-up operation was started and hundreds of thousands of people volunteered. The inside of the hull was cracked and expanded lately, said the ship’s operator, Mitsui O.S.K Lines. The Ship cracked into two, and the forward section could be seen detached.
At around 4.30 pm, a major detachment of the vessel’s forward section was observed
National Crisis Committee of Mauritius said in statement.
Blue Bay Marine Park, Mauritius is the location where the MV Wakashio was seen split into two parts. Spilling hundreds and thousand tonnes of oil. The area is cordoned off as a Forbidden Zone while the volunteers have been asked to pause their activities.
As per various reports, the ships one tank was already leaked into the waters, while the teams were working to remove oil from the other two before the ship broke into two. The removal of oil is not yet exactly determined but Mitsui O.S.K Lines said around 1180 Metric Tons of oil had already leaked from the vessel fuel tank.
460 Tons of oil was manually recovered from the coast and the sea, however, the ship was carrying 3800 tons of very low sulfur fuel oil. Apart from that 200 tons of diesel oil was also present in the vessel. In Mauritius, a state of Environmental Emergency is being observed. The major oil spill is an environmental crisis for Mauritius, as well as its closer to the coast, near the pristine lagoon. The spill is said to be close to two environmentally protected ecosystems in the Marine Bay. The MV Wakashio was destined to Brazil from China when it ran aground on the reef in late July.
