Ship carrying 750 tonnes of fuel sinks off Tunisia

dpa Tunis Tunisia said on Saturday it was working to avoid an “environmental disaster” after the sinking of a merchant vessel carrying 750 tonnes of fuel ...

dpa TunisTunisia said on Saturday it was working to avoid an “environmental disaster” after the sinking of a merchant vessel carrying 750 tonnes of fuel off the North African country.The Equatorial Guinea-flagged ship was sailing from Egypt’s port of Damietta to Malta when it experienced trouble due to bad weather on Friday evening.The vessel was allowed to moor off Tunisia’s coast of Gabes where water initially seeped into its engines chamber and partly submerged it, the Tunisian state news agency TAP reported. A seven-member crew was evacuated from the vessel.The Tunisian Environment Ministry said it had activated an emergency plan to head off a “maritime environmental disaster” off Gabes in south-eastern Tunisia.The ministry said it would seal off the site of the ship sinking.Divers will also be dispatched to inspect the position of the vessel and the location of the fuel leak to take necessary measures to “prevent an environmental disaster,” the ministry added in an online statement. Leaked fuel will be siphoned off.The ministry said it was jointly working with the ministries of defence, interior and transport as well as authorities in Gabes.Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui, who travelled to the port of Gabes on Saturday to help oversee the response, said the situation was “under control”.“We think the hull is still watertight and there is no leakage for the moment,” she said. “We think that the means we already have at our disposal will allow us to limit the accident.”Chikhaoui said the government would not hesitate to appeal for foreign assistance if necessary.The environment minister said authorities were waiting for the “weather to improve in terms of both the wind and the swell before sending down divers to check with more certainty on the state of the hull”.The weather was still too poor to start Saturday, Chikhaoui added.“The ship sank this morning in Tunisian territorial waters. For the moment, there is no leak,” Mohamed Karray, a spokesman for a local court said, adding a “disaster prevention committee will meet to decide on the measures to be taken”.The Georgian captain, four Turk and two Azerbaijani crew were briefly hospitalised for checks and were now in a hotel, Karray said.Earlier, authorities in Tunisia said the ship that ran into difficulty risks leaking fuel.