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(Reuters) – Russian rescue workers have removed more than 86,000 tons of contaminated sand and earth from both sides of the Kerch Strait after an oil spill in the Black Sea last month, the emergency ministry said. said on Saturday.
Oil leaked from two old ships that were hit by a storm on December 15. One sank and the other fell to the ground.
More than 10,000 people are working to extract the aromatic fuel oil from the sandy beaches near Anapa, a popular summer resort. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins, porpoises and seabirds.
The emergency ministry said on the Telegram messaging service that oil-contaminated soil had accumulated in the vast Kuban region of Russia and Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Kyiv in 2014.
The ministry released video footage showing dozens of workers wearing protective suits loading bags of waste onto diggers and others shoveling waste into the sand.
Russia’s Transport Ministry said this week that experts had established that about 2,400 tonnes of oil products had spilled into the sea, a smaller spill than initially feared.
When the disaster struck, state media reported that the damaged ships, both over 50 years old, were carrying about 9,200 tons of oil products per summary.
The spill involved heavy fuel oil of the M100 class which is solid at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and, unlike other oil products, does not float on the surface of water but it sinks to the bottom or remains suspended in the water column.
