Two fuel tanks on a container ship grounded off the coast of New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) were yesterday found to be cracked and leaking, while about 120m3 of fuel oil were still onboard the ship, authorities said.
A clean-up crew on Sunday resumed fuel oil removal operations, which were disrupted due to adverse weather conditions, onboard the ship operated by TS Lines Co (德翔海運).
The crew yesterday found that two tanks located on the ship’s bow were damaged by a hatch cover, which was dislocated by waves, and an estimated 120m3 of fuel oil had spilled into cabins, the Environmental Protection Administration said.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
No apparent oil spill was discovered by a monitoring drone hovering above the ship, so the crew assumed that most of the fuel oil leaking from the cracked tanks remained inside the ship, while TS Lines had deployed oil booms around the vessel to contain a previous spill, the administration said.
The company finished removing 50 cubic meters of oil that was found in one of the cracked tanks, while there were still 18m3 of oil in another tank, which cannot not be drained until garbage in the tank is manually removed.
A total of 35.61m3 of diesel and 284.91m3 of fuel oil have been removed, and about two days are needed to remove the garbage inside the ship’s cabins before cleaning the cabins, the administration said.
The cleaning operation has been slow, because the sea conditions have been rough and clean-up work could only be carried out on a few days since the accident on March 10, with bad weather forcing work crews to remove pipes, the administration said.
Government agencies and the company have dispatched 428 people to remove the spilled oil from the coast, as well as three vessels to clean the oil on the sea.
Oil pollution could be remediated in a period of six months to a few years, depending on the degree of pollution and the environment’s capability to absorb and degrade oil, the administration said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said that it is planning to remove nine containers from the ship by next week as they carry 72 tonnes of hazardous material.
There are concerns that it would take at least three years to restore the ecological balance of the nation’s northern coast if the containers containing poisonous chemicals fell into the sea.
The disaster was brought up during a question-and-answer session at the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday.
Deputy Minister Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁) said it is estimated that pumping out the fuel stored in the ship’s fuel tanks would be completed in about two days.
Once the pumping is finished, the task of removing the containers could begin, Tseng said.
The ship is split into two, with the nine containers carrying toxic chemical located at the front of the ship, Tseng said, adding the ship owner is monitoring the containers on board.
Tseng said the ship was blown by the wind to the north coast after losing power, adding that the location where the ship ran aground is not part of a navigation route for cargo vessels.
He said two ship accidents took place near the nation’s northern coast in the past five years.
To prevent similar incidents from happening, Tseng said the ministry would improve the inspection of ships to ensure that shipping companies carry out maintenance of their vessels.
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