Kiev - Russian rescue crews found another dead sailing on
the shores of the Black Sea on Wednesday, as environmental workers
reported dolphins and other wildlife dying in the wake of an oil
spill.
A Ukrainian navy search team found the floating body of a sailor
in the Kerch Strait, a narrow body of water connecting the Black Sea
and the Sea of Azov.
The victim probably was a crew member of cargo ship Nakhichevan,
one of four vessels sunk by a severe storm striking the region on
Sunday, according to an Interfax news agency report.
Another four ships went hard aground, and 15 more were damaged by
waves topping five metres, and winds in excess of 100 kilometres an
hour. The search effort Wednesday was employing boats, helicopters,
and scuba divers in an attempt to find survivors.
A Russo-Ukrainian inter-government coordination team raised on
Wednesday the number of sailors still thought to be missing to 19
persons. Five men are known to have died as a result of the
accidents.
Clearing weather and calming seas allowed an oil spill clean-up
effort to go forward on Wednesday. On land some 2,000 workers using
shovels and hoses, and including 1,000 student volunteers, cleaned
beaches and rocky shore lines on both sides of the Strait.
Boat teams were at the same time attempting to control a massive
oil slick left by the tanker Volganeft 123, that split in half before
going down.
The tanker had spewed an estimated 2,000 tons of heating oil into
the narrow seaway by Tuesday, and was continuing to leak on
Wednesday.
Salvage vessels began pumping oil remaining aboard the hulk on
Wednesday. They had been unable to do so earlier, because of rough
seas.
Estimates of water birds killed or soon to die from the oil spill,
the most massive seen in the region since the break-up of the Soviet
Union, ranged on Wednesday from 15,000 to 30,000.
Ukraine's Channel 5 television showed images of a 2-metre wide
line of tar-like sludge, some 20 centimetres deep and running for
kilometres along beaches.
Cold water and air would make a full-clean up of the oil almost
impossible, as low temperatures will coagulate much of the fuel into
difficult-to-collect blobs, rather than allow it to spread out into a
relatively easy-to-control slick, said Viktor Tarasenko, a Crimea-
based environmental activist.
As much as 300 tonnes of the oil can or would soon sink to the
bottom of the strait, and remain there, he said.
Dying dolphins had cast themselves up on beaches, and a mass die-
off of fish was imminent, as a result of the spill, Korrespondent
magazine reported.
An additional environmental threat is posed by two cargo ships
carrying the toxic element sulphur, that also sank in the storm.
Though a heavily-trafficked seaway, the coast of the Kerch Strait
is both a summer resort region and protected wetland in both Russia
and Ukraine. Russia's Taman peninsula especially is a popular warm
weather vacation area, having seen substantial investment recently in
seaside tourism.
The Kerch Strait region is home to 11 endangered bird species, and
considered by environmentalists an important wetland supporting
regional fish and water fowl stocks.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story