Coast Guard continues efforts to contain oil spill off Mumbai coast

The Indian Coast Guard today deployed six vessels as well as a Dornier aircraft and a helicopter with anti-pollution dispersants as part of an all-out effort to contain an oil spill caused off the Mumbai coast yesterday by a collision between two cargo ships.

MSC Chitra, which collided with another ship off Mumbai and caused an oil spill on August 7, 2010.

At the break of dawn today, five Coast Guard shis -- Sankalp, Amrit Kaur, Subhadra, Kumari Chauhan, Kamla Devi and C-145 - joined advanced offshore patrol vessel (AOPV) Sangram that was already in the vicinity.

The Dornier aircraft and the helicopter made regular sorties for aerial spray of dispersants, a spokesman for the Coast Guard said.

The two merchant ships - an outbound vessel from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port, MSC Chitra, a Panama-flagged container, and an inbound vessel, MV Khalijia, flagged St Kitts Nevis, collided around 0950 hours yesterday.

The collision caused an oil spill from MSC Chitra at a point about 10 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast.

Coast Guard officials said additional pollution response equipment had been mobilised from Goa, in addition to pool-in resources from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) and other agencies.

The Maharashtra Government, the State Pollution Control Board and the Maharashtra Maritime Board are also helping out with the mobilisation of response resources for shore clean-up, if the need arises.

The officials said the Bombay History Natural Society had been approached to mobilise and keep volunteers on standby for shore clean-up.

Fishing associations had been requested to request their members to not fish in the area till the effect of the oil spill had been minimised. The Chief Secretary of Maharashtra had been requested to impose restriction on fishing activities off Mumbai.

Smit Salvage of Singapore had been employed by the shipping agency of MSC Chitra to assist in the operations.

The Coast Guard said MSC Chitra was dangerously listed to port and containers were falling out of it into the sea regularly. Many of them were seen floating into the channel, posing a navigational hazard.

According to the Coast Guard, thick oil slick had been sighted 1.5 to 2 miles around MSC Chitra.

The officials said containment and recovery of spilled oil in the present position was not feasible because of rocky surface and the prevailing weather and tidal conditions.

Scene of the ship involved in the collision off Mumbai on August 7, 2010.

They said the isolated oil patches from Middle Ground extending upto oil jetty off Butcher Island had been cleared by spraying oil spill dispersants. The broken patches observed off Elephanta Island had also been cleared, they said.

According to them, 150 litres of dispersants had been sprayed on patches close to the Middle Ground. Smaller Coast Guard ships were engaged in churning down the oil sheen for weathering and emulsification.

The Coast Guard said about 200 containers had fallen off from the listing vessel. Some of the floating containers had been towed and collected at one place, the officials said.

As many as 37 people on the two ships, including members of crew, three women and two children, had been safely evacuated by the Coast Guard yesterday. No casualty was reported.

According to preliminary information given yesterday, MSC Chitra had 2,662 tonnes of fuel as well as 238.8 tonnes of diesel and 88040 litres of lube oil.

Ships transiting the aea had been advised by the Coast Guard, through navigational broadcasts, to be cautious of the containers that had fallen from the vessel.

NNN