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FUEL HAS BEEN detected in the sea near the capsized Costa Concordia – apparently from machinery aboard the ship, according to Italian Coast Guard officials.
But Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr Cosimo Nicastro says there is no indication that any of the nearly 2,200 tons of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship’s double-bottomed tanks.
Nicastro said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.
There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside the port of the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio. Nicastro described the light fuel’s presence in the sea as “very light, very superficial” and appearing to be under control.
Although attention has been concentrated on the heavy fuel oil in the tanks, “we must not forget that on that ship there are oils, solvents, detergents, everything that a city of 4,000 people needs,” Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, told reporters in Giglio.
Gabrielli, who is leading rescue, search and anti-pollution efforts for the Concordia, was referring to the roughly 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew who were aboard the cruise liner when it ran into a reef near Giglio’s coast on January 14, and then, with the sea rushing into a 70-metre gash in its hull, listed and finally fell onto its side.
Considering all the substances aboard the Concordia, “contamination of the environment, ladies and gentlemen, already occurred” when the cruise liner capsized, Gabrielli told a news conference.
Vessels equipped with machinery to suck out the light fuel oil were in the area, Italian officials told Italian TV.
Earlier today, crews removed oil-absorbing booms used to prevent environmental damage in case of a leak. Originally white, the booms were grayish.
Divers resumed their search of the wreckage after data indicated the cruise ship had stabilised in the sea off Tuscany. To make it easier to enter and leave, the divers blasted more holes into the carcass of the ship. They were hoping to inspect an area where many passengers had gathered during the evacuation.
They were searching for bodies or survivors, although it is considered unlikely any of the 21 missing in the accident could still be alive.
The search had been suspended on Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the sea. An abrupt shift could also cause a leak in the Concordia’s fuel tanks, polluting the pristine waters around Giglio, part of a seven-island Tuscan archipelago.
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Is this the guy that openly admitted that he murdered policemen, Serbs, Albanians that did not cooperate, etc? The guy who had something like 18 witnesses against him, out of which 16 all of a sudden caught a terminal case of death? :)
This Hague tribunal is becoming more and more like a Muppet Show. The only difference is that real people, with real families, real victims are suffering for the past 20 years because of this bunch of Muppets playing judges.
According to Amnesty International an estimated 800 non-Albanians were allegedly abducted and murdered by members of the KLA and to date very few of those suspected of criminal responsibility for these abductions have been prosecuted in Kosovo. In this instance, most of Harandinaj and his two pals from the Kosovo Liberation Army were accused of atrocities against Serb, Albanian and Roma civilians in 1998, the majority of the murdered vicims were ironically (for those celebrating in Pristina tonight) ethnic Albanians.
I agree with you Dragutin. The Hague is a tool of the West. That man is a criminal who should be locked up. But then again, he was never going to be found guilty. The US has its biggest base our used the US on Kosovo, one of the rewards it got for supporting Kosovo independence.
Bush, Blair and a good many other Western leaders should have been tried by the Hague but they never were.
If you suggested this in Western media you would be ridiculed. They caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent through unjust sanctions abs am even more criminal war.
Agree completely, Bill Clinton is a war criminal but he gets the red carpet treatment and lived like a celebrity
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