On Tuesday, British police arrested the captain on Tuesday of a cargo suspected of mansions guilty as they were looking for answers on the reasons for which he hit an oil tanker carrying fuel to throw for the American army Off the east of England one day earlier, fixing the two ships on fire. A sailor was presumed dead in the collision.
Humberside police said the 59 -year -old had been detained “suspected of serious negligence for negligence in the collision.” He was not appointed by the police and was not charged.
Maritime company Ernst Russ, the owner of the container carrier struck by Portugal, the Solong, said that the man arrested was the master of the ship. He said he “and our whole team actively help in surveys”.
An American Stretena Immaculate Tanker crew member in Flaggi in the United States who spoke anonymously to CBS News because he was not allowed to speak with the accident media said that the ship had been anchored where the collision occurred. The oil tanker had relayed his contact details, said the man, which means that all the other ships in the region should have known his position.
The crew member said the Solong “Get out of blue” And hit the Stena.
He said that he was close to the part of the Stena where the Solong had had his impact, and that he had only a few seconds to react when he heard cries before the impact.
The government said the cause of the collision was investigated. There was no indication of unfair game, but that sparked fears of significant environmental damage.
Yann Schreiber and Paz Pizarro / AFP via Getty Images
British officials monitored damage to birds and marine life after the jet fuel spilled in the North Sea when the Solong finished Stena on Monday. The collision sparked explosions and fires that burned for more than 24 hours.
An American official told CBS News on Monday that the STENA transported cargoes in support of the Ministry of Defense. The collision had no impact on operations or combat preparation, said the manager.
Images filmed from a helicopter on Tuesday morning showed that the fire seemed to be widely released on the Stena, which had a large cut on the port side.
Danny Lawson / PA / Getty images
The British Coast Guard agency said on Tuesday that Solong was still on fire. He said the cargo cargo, whose front was crushed and blackened, was dried south, far from the oil tanker, and an exclusion zone of about half a mile had been set up around the two ships.
“No sign of pollution of ships is observed at that time,” said British Minister for Transport, Mike Kane, to the legislators in the House of Commons.
The government said that air quality readings were normal and that the risk to public health onshore was “very low”.
Kane initially said that Solong was to flow, but the government later said that the two ships were likely to stay afloat.
The collision sparked a major rescue operation by rescue canoes, coastal guard planes and commercial ships in the misty northern sea.
All the 37 crew members except one of the two ships were brought safely into the port of Grimsby, about 150 miles (north of London, without major injuries. A crew member was missing, and the guards coast canceled the search on Monday evening.
“Our working hypothesis is that, unfortunately, the sailor has died,” said Kane.
The management of the UK marine accident survey began to collect evidence of what caused the Solong, linked to Grangemouth, in Scotland, in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, to strike the stationary oil tanker, which was anchored around 10 miles off the English coast.
The investigation will be carried out by the United States and Portugal, the countries where ships are reported.
The 596 -foot STENA Immaculate operated as part of the US government’s security program, a group of commercial ships that can be contracted to transport fuel for the army if necessary. Its operator, the Maritime Management Company in the United States, Crowley, said that it was carrying 220,000 barrels of JE-A1 fuel in 16 tanks, at least one of which was broken.
The company said that it was not clear how many fuel had sank into the sea.
The North Sea shelters a number of protected marine animalsas well as vital fishing stocks for the United Kingdom and other European countries.
Oceana UK believes that the collision has taken place nearly two protected areas in particular, including the protected area of the North Sea Navy, which is designated to protect the Port Porpoise, according to Naomi Tilley, the oil and gas campaign chief at Oceana UK, an environmental group focused on the oceans.
“It is a really important field of reproduction and a very large part of the world’s population is in this area,” she told CBS News on Tuesday.
The owner of the Solong said that unlike previous reports, the ship did not carry sodium cyanide containers, which can produce harmful gas when combined with water. He said four empty containers previously contained the chemical.
“Our team is actively engaged with all local authorities, and we will work with cleaning teams to ensure that all efforts are made to alleviate the additional impacts on the marine environment,” the company said in a statement.
Greenpeace UK said it was too early to assess the extent of environmental damage to the collision, which took place near fishing grounds and sea birds colonies.
Ecologists have said that oil and chemicals pose a risk for marine life, including whales and dolphins and birds, including puffs, bankruptcy crazy and quotes that live on coastal cliffs.
Tom Webb, lecturer in marine ecology and conservation at the University of Sheffield, said that fauna along this section of the coast “is of immense biological, cultural and economic importance”.
Alex Lukyanov, who models oil spills at the University of Reading, said that the environmental impact would depend on several factors, including “the size of the spill, weather conditions, sea currents, water waves, wind models and the type of oil involved”.
“This particular incident is disturbing because it seems to imply persistent oil, which slowly breaks in water,” he said. “The environmental toll could be serious.”
