The ship “Xelo” sank on April 17 by twenty meters of bottom, with its cargo of 750 tons of diesel.
Le Monde with AFP
“No leak” detected: divers inspected Sunday, April 17 the oil hull who flowed the day before Gabes, off the southeastern coast of Tunisia, and they did not see any flow of his Cargo of 750 tons of diesel, indicated the Tunisian authorities.
According to divers, the ship “sank at nearly 20 meters bottom, in horizontal position and does not present cracks,” said the Tunisian Ministry of the Environment in a statement, adding that ” No leaks were found on the diesel cargo “.
The team of divers was “accompanied by the captain and the mechanic of the ship, who know the configuration of the vessel”, said AFP, Mohamed Karray, spokesperson for the parquet of Gabès, who opened an investigation on the causes of the accident.
The Xelo tanker, part of the harbor of Damiette in Egypt and heading towards Malta, sank Saturday in the Tunisian waters where he had taken refuge at night before due to poor weather conditions. The ship of 58 meters long on 9 wide began taking the water in the machine room.
“The situation is not dangerous”
The authorities then evacuated the seven crew members, before the sinking of the Xelo at dawn. On a video of the Ministry of the Environment Sunday, we only see the tip of a mast that emerges from the waves. The zone, controlled by the army, is inaccessible to the press.
According to the Minister of Transport, Rabie El Majidi, during rescue, rescuers “have made sure to close the shims to avoid diesel leaks and divers found that they are intact”. “The situation is not dangerous, the diagnosis is positive, the ship is stable because it happily poured on sand,” said the minister at a press point Sunday in the port of Gabès, with his colleague. environment.
Floating anti-pollution dams have already been installed on a perimeter of 200 meters around the wreckage. But the priority of the authorities remains the pumping of the diesel. It’s “very delicate for divers to locate the outputs [of the shims] to make the pumping,” the press explained the Minister of Transport, while minimizing the magnitude of the risks: “750 tons of diesel, C ‘ is nothing at all “and” diesel evaporates easily with the sun “.
The authorities said to study “the offers received to help them” for pumping, from also abroad. “The Italian Ambassador [in Tunisia] Lorenzo Fanara was contacted this Sunday by the Tunisian authorities and the Italian Government immediately decided to send a depollution vessel and a team of specialized divers,” said sources. diplomats at AFP. “The ship will arrive Monday in Tunisian waters,” they added.
What is the ship’s course?
Pending the pumping of the cargo, the WWF Nature Defense Organization warned against “a new environmental disaster” in a region which is a fishing area for “about 34,000 marine” and suffered from pollution episodes, especially due to the phosphate industries and the presence of an oil pipeline in recent decades.
Tunisian leaders are also interested in the ship’s course, built in 1977 and flag of Equatorial Guinea, and its owners: a Turkish and a Libyan, according to the parquet of Gabes.
The “lading”, an important document [on the trajectory and cargo of the ship] was left on the vessel by the crew, “said the Minister of the Environment Leïla Chikhaoui. The Ministry of Transport seeks to “check the exact nature of the ship’s activity and its journey of the last weeks”.
According to this ministry, the XELO stationed from 4 to 8 April in the Tunisian port of Sfax, north of Gabès, “to change crew, refueling and making light repairs, without loading or unloading” . Local media recalled the proximity of the Gulf of Gabès with Libya, a large oil producing country, whose ribs were the scene of hydrocarbon trafficking in recent years.