India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast
KOCHI/BENGALURU: Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala were scrambling to contain an oil spill on Monday after a container vessel sank, leaking fuel into the Arabian Sea and releasing 100 cargo containers into the water.
The Liberia-flagged MSC ELSA3 ship was traveling from Vizhinjam on India's southern tip to Kochi when it capsized about 38 nautical miles off Kerala on Saturday, officials said, adding that all 24 crew members had been rescued.
The entire ship has since been 'submerged,' the Kerala chief minister's office said in a statement on Sunday without elaborating on the cause of the incident.
'The Coast Guard is taking steps to block the oil with two ships. A Dornier aircraft is also being used to spray oil-destroying powder on the oil slick,' the statement said.
The vessel was carrying 640 containers, including 13 with 'hazardous cargo' and 12 with calcium carbide, the Indian coast guard said, without disclosing the contents of the containers that fell into the sea.
Cyprus-based MSC Shipmanagement, which owns the vessel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Kerala coast has been put on high alert, with local coastal bodies instructed not to touch or go near the containers — some of which began washing up on beaches on Monday — and fishermen advised not to venture into the sea.
Authorities in the state's Kollam region have encouraged people living nearby to move to safer places.
Accidental oil spills in the ocean can have far-reaching effects, putting marine ecosystems to the local fishing industry at risk.
The collision of a BW LPG vessel and a local ship carrying heavy fuel oil caused a similar oil spill in 2017 near the southern city of Chennai, which harmed aquatic life and affected the livelihood of thousands of fishermen.
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The kitchen, once used to prepare meals for a large joint family, now wears the look of a charred, cratered space. Broken plates, half-melted pots and a ruined gas cylinder are scattered around. Faiz Muhammad Kayani, the 70-year-old head of the family, struggled to speak as he entered the drawing room of the house with the help of a walking stick. Dozens of mourners have been visiting the family since the attack, but the elderly man, father to three sons and four daughters, is unable to come to terms with the horror he witnessed. That morning, Faiz was at his younger son's adjacent house and was coming to feed the livestock when he heard the shell strike his elder son's house. 'I ran… I ran fast. But what was left to see? There was nothing left… just mud and stones,' he said in a shallow voice. 'They were buried underneath.' The 70-year-old fell silent before excusing himself from further conversation. Bitter rivals India and Pakistan have fought three wars, including two over the disputed region of Kashmir, since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety but rule it in part. The latest conflict was sparked by a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir's Pahalgam town that killed 26 tourists on April 22. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which Islamabad denied and called for a credible, international probe. 'SCATTERED ACROSS BUSHES' Kayani's younger brother, Muhammad Sajid Kayani, also a soldier posted in Azad Kashmir's Kotli sector, reached the house around 2 p.m. on the day of the tragedy. 'Despite the shock, [our] father pulled out the first body. Her [sister-in-law Qayyum] legs had been blown off,' Sajid said. Their neighbors were unable to help as the shelling continued for hours. Sajid's sister, who lived nearby, arrived shortly afterward and began searching for their mother. 'She found only our mother's face. The rest of her body was scattered across the bushes. We had to collect the limbs piece by piece,' Sajid said. 'She found my little niece Hadiya under the rubble. Her left arm was missing. Her stomach was ripped open, and her intestines were outside.' But Hadiya was not the only child hit by the artillery fire. 'One of our nieces was just stepping inside through the kitchen door into the main house when the shell hit,' Sajid said. 'She was badly injured, shrapnel tore through her legs. She's still recovering.' The family held the funeral by 2:30 p.m. on May 10, hours before their eldest son, Kayani, could return home from Lahore. 'I couldn't even attend the burial of my wife, daughter, and mother,' Kayani said, citing heavy shelling and road closures as the reasons. The two brothers returned to the wreckage the following day to search for anything left. 'We started clearing mud and lifting stones. 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