Villagers take seepage off river water along Sundarbans; oil tanker salvaged
Staff Correspondent
The air around the
Sundarbans is thick and it smells foul. The black slick flowing down the
Shela and Pashur rivers, covering grasses and plants on their banks,
gives a feeling that it is not the world's biggest mangrove forest,
rather an industrial city cursed and polluted by civilisation's waste.
Animals have started to die already. The water hyacinths on the two rivers have turned black. Some Golpata trees have been covered with thick layers of oil.
One local, Abu Jafar, spotted two animals -- a monitor lizard and an otter -- dead and smeared with oil along the banks of the Shela.
Meanwhile, the authorities pulled the sunken oil tanker ashore around 11:00am yesterday, some 30 hours after the accident. But all the 3.58 lakh litres of furnace oil the tanker was carrying already spilled out into the rivers and the adjacent cannels.
The ship in now in safety, said M Giasuddin, managing director of the owning firm, Harun & Company.
Two of the six containers of oil in the vessel were completely damaged, Giasuddin said. “We are checking to see if the four other containers are all right.”
As of Wednesday evening, the slick spread over a stretch of about 60km -- up to Koromjal in the upstream and up to Kachikhali in the downstream. At least 20 canals connected to the Shela river were polluted.
The intensity of the pollution was yet to be determined and officials were working to that end.
The
slick started on Tuesday morning, after the oil tanker, Southern
Star-7, carrying 3.58 lakh litres of furnace oil and eight crew members
sank near Mongla around 5:00am. It went down after being hit by a cargo
vessel from behind. Seven crews managed to swim ashore, but its captain
Mokhlesur Rahman is still missing.
Meantime, the authorities have asked the local people to collect the furnace oil and sell it to the Padma Oil Company agents. Locals have been advised to use fishing nets, sponge or any other manual means to collect the oil.
“We have been asking the local people to collect the oil and sell it to the agents of Padma Oil. They would be able to collect it by using sponges or nets,” BIWTA Chairman Shamsuzzoha told The Daily Star yesterday, when asked about the cleaning plan.
A number of TV channels also quoted him as saying that Navy vessel Kandari-10 would spray a powder adhesive to increase the density of the oil. It will then be swept away through fishing nets from at least 20 points of the canals.
To stop the spread further, the authorities have also banned plying of vessels through the Shela river until further notice.
“The forest department and the district administration will enforce this decision,” Shamsuzzoha said.
Plying of vessels through the reserve forest, a Unesco natural heritage site, is illegal at any time under the environment protection law.
When pointed this out and asked why the authorities did not ban playing of ships earlier, he said they had to allow it as the alternative route, the Mongla-Ghorisakhali channel, lost navigability.
“But now we have been forced to make this decision because of the accident,” he said, adding that now all the commercial vessels would go through the Pashur river via Akram point.
But though this decision was made at a meeting yesterday morning, this correspondent saw around 3:00pm three vessels plying through the route where the accident took place. The three ships are MV Jal Bihanga, MS Shurovi Carriers and MV Beauty Keraniganj.
The oil slick will have a severe impact on the aquatic lives and the mangrove plants grown along the shorelines where the thick layer of oil has gathered. Fish and other aquatic lives would start dying in a day or two while the mangroves might start dying after a month. The spill will also cause a huge problem on the shorelines of canals and rivers the animals of the mangrove forest drink from, wildlife experts said.
“Not only the aquatic resources, all the animals of the Sundarbans will be affected by this accident as all the animals come to the rivers and canals to drink water,” Monirul H Khan, an eminent tiger expert, told this paper.
But the most horrific thing is that the oil would be in the ecosystem for up to 50 years, he added.
A
reptile dead on the shore of the Shela river near the Sundarbans
yesterday where an oil tanker sank on Tuesday with 3.58 lakh litres of
furnace oil. The spill spread over 50km damaging the biodiversity of the
Sundarbans region. Photo: Star
Animals have started to die already. The water hyacinths on the two rivers have turned black. Some Golpata trees have been covered with thick layers of oil.
One local, Abu Jafar, spotted two animals -- a monitor lizard and an otter -- dead and smeared with oil along the banks of the Shela.
Meanwhile, the authorities pulled the sunken oil tanker ashore around 11:00am yesterday, some 30 hours after the accident. But all the 3.58 lakh litres of furnace oil the tanker was carrying already spilled out into the rivers and the adjacent cannels.
The ship in now in safety, said M Giasuddin, managing director of the owning firm, Harun & Company.
Two of the six containers of oil in the vessel were completely damaged, Giasuddin said. “We are checking to see if the four other containers are all right.”
As of Wednesday evening, the slick spread over a stretch of about 60km -- up to Koromjal in the upstream and up to Kachikhali in the downstream. At least 20 canals connected to the Shela river were polluted.
The intensity of the pollution was yet to be determined and officials were working to that end.
A
man inspecting the wreck of the oil tanker after it was pulled out of
the Shela river yesterday. The tanker went down in the river loaded with
furnace oil early Tuesday causing damage to the environment of the
Sundarbans, the largest of its kind in the world. Photo: Star
Meantime, the authorities have asked the local people to collect the furnace oil and sell it to the Padma Oil Company agents. Locals have been advised to use fishing nets, sponge or any other manual means to collect the oil.
“We have been asking the local people to collect the oil and sell it to the agents of Padma Oil. They would be able to collect it by using sponges or nets,” BIWTA Chairman Shamsuzzoha told The Daily Star yesterday, when asked about the cleaning plan.
A number of TV channels also quoted him as saying that Navy vessel Kandari-10 would spray a powder adhesive to increase the density of the oil. It will then be swept away through fishing nets from at least 20 points of the canals.
To stop the spread further, the authorities have also banned plying of vessels through the Shela river until further notice.
“The forest department and the district administration will enforce this decision,” Shamsuzzoha said.
Plying of vessels through the reserve forest, a Unesco natural heritage site, is illegal at any time under the environment protection law.
When pointed this out and asked why the authorities did not ban playing of ships earlier, he said they had to allow it as the alternative route, the Mongla-Ghorisakhali channel, lost navigability.
“But now we have been forced to make this decision because of the accident,” he said, adding that now all the commercial vessels would go through the Pashur river via Akram point.
But though this decision was made at a meeting yesterday morning, this correspondent saw around 3:00pm three vessels plying through the route where the accident took place. The three ships are MV Jal Bihanga, MS Shurovi Carriers and MV Beauty Keraniganj.
The oil slick will have a severe impact on the aquatic lives and the mangrove plants grown along the shorelines where the thick layer of oil has gathered. Fish and other aquatic lives would start dying in a day or two while the mangroves might start dying after a month. The spill will also cause a huge problem on the shorelines of canals and rivers the animals of the mangrove forest drink from, wildlife experts said.
“Not only the aquatic resources, all the animals of the Sundarbans will be affected by this accident as all the animals come to the rivers and canals to drink water,” Monirul H Khan, an eminent tiger expert, told this paper.
But the most horrific thing is that the oil would be in the ecosystem for up to 50 years, he added.
Published: 12:01 am Friday, December 12, 2014
Last modified: 12:37 am Friday, December 12, 2014
