The environmental damage from an oil spill in the Solomon Islands has been worsened by a bauxite mining company’s continued loading operations near the site where a US$30 million bulk carrier went aground last month.
The Solomon Islands government has sought urgent help from Australia to deal with the environmental disaster because of frustrations at the slow progress in dealing with the spill.
The MV Solomon Trader had been loading bauxite from a mine on Rennell Island before cyclone Oma pushed it aground on a coral reef on Feb. 5.
Photo: Reuters / Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
So far, 75 tonnes of fuel oil have leaked into the ocean. The 225m ship was carrying up to 600 tonnes of fuel oil, as well as a full load of bauxite, the main ore used to make aluminum.
The clean-up operation could take months and might require further assistance from countries such as Australia.
“Once it hits rock the heavy fuel oil is effectively like a bitumen-
like substance and has to be removed by hand,” a source in the Solomon Islands with knowledge of the incident said.
The oil is yet to reach East Rennell, the largest raised coral atoll in the world and a world heritage site. Since 2013, the site has been on a UNESCO danger list because of logging and overfishing.
Authorities are concerned the ship is at risk of breaking up while Bintan Mining Solomon Islands Ltd, the Indonesian company that chartered the vessel, continues to load bauxite with other bulk carriers.
“Bauxite extraction and loading is continuing in the bay, that is further churning up the oil,” a source said.
The Solomon Islands government is expected to demand the company cease operations.
Officials from the Solomon Island Maritime Administration interviewed mining management on Thursday afternoon in Honiara.
A spokeswoman for the company confirmed its operations were continuing.
“Yes, we are continuing,” she said.
Salvage efforts were under way, she said, without elaborating.
An insurance company has engaged a salvage company in the Solomon Islands to handle the ship, which is owned by a Hong Kong company, South Express Ltd, but so far the rest of the oil remains on board.
“All of the evidence indicates very little prospect of imminent action that would involve getting the oil off the vessel and preventing the ongoing spill,” the source said.
It has also been reported that local villagers have been looting the ship for equipment.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has updated travel advice warning people to reconsider the need to travel to Rennell Island because “heavy fuel oil is a toxic substance” and exposure to it posed a health risk.
The UNESCO World Heritage Centre this week expressed concerned about the impact of the oil spill. It was working with the Solomon authorities to minimize the impact of the spill.
Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority has carried out surveillance flights and deployed several officials to the disaster zone.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS