Efforts will begin on Saturday in Solomon Islands to refloat a wrecked ship at the centre of an environmental disaster.

Photo: The Australian High Commission Solomon Islands

Since early February, bulk carrier, Solomon Trader, has been wedged on a reef off Rennell Island, where it has spilled an estimated 100 tonnes of oil.

The spill happened near a protected marine area and poisoned local water supplies and fishing grounds, sparking an international outcry.

More than three months on, the Solomon Islands Disaster Management Office said the vessel will be refloated and towed from the reef.

Its director, Loti Yates, said the process, which is being led by a salvager contracted by the shipowner's insurer, will take around three days.

"It is a huge and very, very difficult operation," he said.

Mr Yates added that cleanup efforts which began in March are ongoing, with oil still coating the shoreline of the nearby and once pristine Kangava Bay.

He added that all oil onboard the ship had been removed but based on ship records there was an unknown amount missing.

"Maybe they evaporated, maybe they just sailed away or sunk into the bottom of the ocean. Not sure yet."

Mr Yates said investigations by the Solomon Islands government into the disaster had been obstructed by a missing data drive taken from the ship by its owner.

He said requests for the data - which is too big to transfer online - to be sent physically had gone unanswered for the past three weeks.

"We are sort of frustrated but we are still hoping that it will arrive." </s> The ship at the centre of an environmental disaster near World-Heritage listed waters in the Solomon Islands was refloated Saturday after being stranded on a coral reef for more than three months.

The MV Solomon Trader ran aground on February 5 while loading bauxite at Rennell Island, about 240 kilometres (149 miles) south of the capital Honiara.

The 225-metre (740-foot) ship was carrying more than 700 tonnes of heavy fuel and leaked a huge amount of oil into the sea, sparking an international effort to contain the spill.

"They have been trying to refloat the vessel since Thursday but because of low tide they have not been able to, until today", the chairman of the Solomons National Disaster Council, Melchior Mataki, told AFP.

An oil slick more than six kilometres long has spread along the shoreline, destroying the livelihoods of islanders who rely on waters in the ecologically delicate region.

Rennell Island is the largest raised coral atoll in the world and includes a UNESCO World Heritage site which extends kilometres out to sea.

Authorities have said the site was not affected by the spill, although Mataki said a detailed environmental assessment will be undertaken now that the vessel is out of the way.

"There is a preliminary report but the full report will be made known once assessments and investigation findings are compiled properly", he said, adding the government would likely seek compensation for environmental damage.

The Australian government had sent salvage experts to assist the response and vowed to help the Solomons make sure those responsible for the spill are held to account.

The Hong Kong-registered ship was chartered by Indonesian-based Bintan Mining and was loaded with almost 11,000 tonnes of bauxite at the time of the incident. </s> The front section of an Iranian oil tanker that has been on fire for days off the east China coast has exploded, forcing rescue boats searching for 31 missing sailors to retreat and sparking environmental concerns.

Thirty-two crew members, including 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis, went missing after the tanker carrying 136,000 tonnes of oil condensate from Iran to South Korea collided with a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter and caught fire on Saturday in waters about 160 sea miles east of the Yangtze River’s estuary.

Since then, the Panama-registered tanker Sanchi has been ablaze and drifting in the waters between Shanghai and southern Japan.

So far, no survivors from the tanker have been found and only one body has been recovered. All 21 crew members aboard the Chinese ship were rescued.

The front section of the tanker exploded on Wednesday.

“Vessels at the scene have to stop putting out the fire and withdraw back to (a safe distance),” China’s ministry of transport said. “The fire extinguishing operation did not achieve the desired effect,” it said.

China’s largest patrol ship Haixun 01 is fighting the fire after the explosion while organising other vessels to move away, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, Japanese sea police arrived at the scene an hour before the explosion and established contact with Haixun 01.

China’s Ministry of Foreign affairs said on Wednesday that 12 vessels were searching for the missing sailors in the tanker’s vicinity before the explosion, and efforts were continuing to clean up any spilled light crude.

Since the crash, the tanker has been billowing thick plumes of black smoke. Officials worry that the explosion might sink the ship, releasing its 1 million barrels of oil into the water.

The resulting spill would be about three times as big as the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

“For now, burning might be good for consuming the leaked oil, but there will be some remaining for which disposal will be difficult,” Lin Boqiang, director of the China Centre for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

Sanchi was carrying 1.36 lakh tons of condensate oil when it collided with CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter in waters about 160 nautical miles east of the Yangtze River estuary.

Experts are especially worried because the ship is carrying condensate, an ultralight version of crude oil. Condensate is highly toxic and even more combustible than regular crude oil. It also is nearly colourless and odourless, which makes it difficult to detect.

Oil is usually not degradable, meaning the damage to the ocean would be long-term, he said.

Zhao Ruxiang, an expert with China’s Yantai Oil Spill Response Technical Centre, was quoted by the ministry as saying that a simulation test showed condensate oil in the water can evaporate so quickly that it will leave little residue - less than 1 percent after five hours.

“It is toxic and volatile when exposed to air,” Zhao said. </s> BEIJING (Reuters) - A tanker carrying Iranian oil and run by the country’s top oil shipping firm was ablaze and spewing cargo into the East China Sea on Sunday after colliding with a Chinese freight ship, leaving the tanker’s 32 crew members missing, the Chinese government said.

Thick clouds of dark smoke could be seen billowing out of the Sanchi tanker, engulfing the vessel as rescue efforts were hampered by bad weather and fire on and around the ship, Mohammad Rastad, head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation, told Iranian television. (Graphic: Map showing ship collision location - tmsnrt.rs/2CBgqai)

The Sanchi, run by the country’s top oil shipping operator, collided with the CF Crystal about 160 nautical miles off the coast near Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta on Saturday evening, the Chinese Ministry of Transportation said in a statement.

The Panama-registered tanker was sailing from Iran to South Korea, carrying 136,000 tonnes of condensate, an ultra light crude. That is equivalent to just under 1 million barrels, worth about $60 million, based on global crude oil prices.

“Sanchi is floating and burning as of now,” the Chinese ministry said. “There is an oil slick and we are pushing forward with rescue efforts.”

It had sent four rescue ships and three cleaning boats to the site by 9 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Sunday, the ministry added.

Chinese state media CCTV showed pictures of the tanker ablaze and billowing plumes of thick dark smoke.

South Korea also dispatched a ship and helicopter to help. A Korean Coast Guard official confirmed the fire was still raging at 1 p.m. (0500 GMT).

The tanker’s 32 crew members are all Iranian nationals except for two Bangladeshi nationals, the Chinese transport ministry said.

“There is a wide perimeter of flames around the vessel because of the spillage and search and rescue efforts are being carried out with difficulty,” Iran’s Rastad said.

“Unfortunately, up to this moment, there is no news of the crew,” he said.

CF Crystal’s 21 crew members, all Chinese nationals, were rescued and the ship suffered “non-critical” damage, China’s transport ministry said.

Shipping experts said the incident could potentially disrupt shipping in and around Shanghai, one of the world’s largest and busiest ports.

It was not immediately clear how much environmental damage had been caused or the volume of oil spilled into the sea.

The last major oil tanker disaster was the sinking of the Prestige off Spain in November 2002, which was carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and caused one of Europe’s worst environmental catastrophes.

About 63,000 tonnes of its cargo leaked into the Atlantic, damaging beaches in France, Spain and Portugal and forcing the closure of Spain’s richest fishing grounds.

That was almost twice the size of the Exxon Valdez spill, which ravaged Alaska’s coast in 1989.

MAJOR MARITIME INCIDENT

The incident also marked the first major maritime incident involving an Iranian tanker since the lifting of international sanctions against Iran in January 2016.

There was a collision involving an NITC-operated supertanker in the Singapore Strait in August 2016, but there was no loss of life or pollution.

The Chinese government gave no details of the size of the spill. The Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement that the cause of the incident was under investigation.

Reuters ship tracking data shows Sanchi was built in 2008 and was managed by the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC). Its registered owner is Bright Shipping Ltd.

It was due to arrive at Daesan in South Korea from Kharg Island in Iran on Sunday, according to Reuters ship tracking.

The Sanchi tanker, leased by Hanwha Total Petrochemical Co Ltd, had “valid foreign insurance”, Iranian oil ministry spokesman Kasra Nouri told Iran’s state television.

Hanwha Total was not immediately available for comment.

Norwegian ship insurer Skuld confirmed it was the lead hull insurer for the tanker and the protection and indemnity (P&I;) insurer for CF Crystal.

Related Coverage Factbox: Major oil tanker spills since 1970

“We are working very closely with the relevant authorities to establish the facts surrounding the collision,” it said in a statement.

Sanchi collided with CF Crystal, registered in Hong Kong, which was carrying 64,000 tonnes of grain from the United States to China’s southern province of Guangdong, the Chinese government said.

CF Crystal, which was built in 2011, was due to arrive in China on Jan. 10, according to Reuters ship tracking data. </s> An Iranian oil tanker burst into flames from end to end and sank Sunday, eight days after it caught fire following a collision with a cargo ship off China, state media said.

Earlier, a Tehran official said there was no hope of saving some 30 missing crewmen before the ship sank, amid concern over an oil spill as Chinese officials played down fears of a major environmental disaster.

The Sanchi, carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil from Iran, had been burning since colliding with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, on January 6.

At around midday Sunday the ship "suddenly ignited", with the entire vessel burning fiercely and a pall of smoke between 800 and 1,000 metres (2,625 and 3,280 feet) high, China's transport ministry said, releasing dramatic pictures of the entire vessel obscured by thick black smoke.

The ship later sank, the official news agency Xinhua cited the State Oceanic Administration as saying.

"There is no hope of finding survivors among the members of the crew," Mohammad Rastad, spokesman for the Iranian rescue team dispatched to Shanghai, told Iran's state broadcaster in Tehran before the tanker went down.

Rastad said information from members of the Crystal crew suggested all the personnel on the Sanchi died in the first hour of the accident "due to the explosion and the release of gas".

"Despite our efforts, it has not been possible to extinguish the fire and recover the bodies due to repeated explosions and gas leaks," he said.

The Sanchi, which had been headed to South Korea to deliver its cargo, had a crew of 32 -- 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis. Only three bodies have been recovered.

Scenes of anger and grief erupted in Tehran as news of the deaths reached dozens of family, friends and colleagues of the crew, who were waiting desperately for information about their loved ones at the National Iranian Tanker Company headquarters.

Labour Minister Ali Rabiei was shown crying on state television as he tried to comfort the wife of one crewman, telling her to "hold your child close and be strong".

Chinese rescuers had on Saturday recovered the tanker's "black box", the transport ministry said, without specifying exactly what had been retrieved.

A reporter with China's state television CCTV aboard a plane from the State Oceanic Administration reported seeing wreckage from the Sanchi, oil on fire, and spilled fuel covering a 10-square-kilometre (3.9-square-mile) area.

"The oil spill situation is very serious," CCTV quoted the reporter as saying on social media.

But the television channel earlier also cited Zhang Yong, a senior engineer with the State Oceanic Administration, as playing down fears of a spill.

"Because this is a light crude oil spill, relatively speaking it has a much smaller impact than other oil spills, because this kind of oil is especially volatile -- most of it has entered the atmosphere, so it's had less impact on the ocean", Zhang was quoted as saying.

"This area should be considered the open sea, very far from places where people live, so the human impact should be minimal."

Rescue efforts had been particularly difficult because at 89 degrees Celsius, the vessel's compartments were too hot for workers to withstand for long, CCTV quoted He Wang, an expert from Chinese oil company Huade Petrochemical, as saying. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Huge plumes of smoke were seen rising from the tanker

There are fears of an environmental disaster in the East China Sea as a tanker continues leaking oil two days after colliding with a cargo ship.

Chinese officials have told state media the Sanchi is in danger of exploding and sinking.

Rescuers trying to reach the burning tanker were beaten back by toxic clouds, the transport ministry says.

The body of one crewman, among the 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis on board, has been found. The rest are missing.

Where, how and when did the accident happen?

The Panama-flagged Sanchi was bringing its cargo of oil from Iran to South Korea when it collided with the Hong Kong-registered freighter CF Crystal, carrying grain from the US, in the East China Sea. The incident occurred about 260km (160 miles) off the coast of Shanghai.

The collision, in the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta, occurred on Saturday evening.

The exact cause of the collision is not yet known.

Why is the Sanchi's oil so dangerous?

The tanker, run by Iran's leading oil shipping operator, has on board 136,000 tonnes of condensate, which is an ultra-light version of crude oil.

That is about one million barrels and at current prices is worth roughly $60m (£44m).

The Sanchi will also be carrying a certain amount of heavy - and toxic - shipping fuel.

Condensate is very different from the black crude that is often seen in oil spills.

It exists in gas form within high-pressure oil reservoirs and liquefies once extracted.

It is highly toxic, low in density and considerably more explosive than regular crude oil.

Condensate, which does not need the heavy refining process of denser crude, creates products such as jet fuel, petrol, diesel and heating fuel.

So is it bad for the environment?

Condensate is certainly toxic. It is much lighter in colour and odour than heavy crudes, potentially making it a lot harder to detect and contain.

Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, told the BBC there was another difference: "It's not like crude, which does break down under natural microbial action; this stuff actually kills the microbes that break the oil down."

It cannot be picked off the surface like heavy crude.

Dr Boxall said the best hope was to put out the fire and stop the ship from sinking.

"If she sinks with a lot of cargo intact, then you have a time bomb on the sea bed which will slowly release the condensate."

He added: "There could be a long-term exclusion of fishing for many hundreds of kilometres in this area."

How is the rescue going?

The Sanchi was still ablaze on Monday morning.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said weather conditions were "not that favourable for search and rescue work".

Image copyright AFP Image caption A Chinese fire-fighting vessel tackles the blaze on the Sanchi

There are no signs of survivors among the 32-strong crew, although the 21 Chinese nationals on the grain freighter were rescued.

China has sent several ships to carry out search-and-rescue operations, while South Korea helped with a coast guard ship and a helicopter.

The US Navy also sent a military aircraft to help with the rescue efforts.

How does this compare with other oil spills?

It is impossible to say at this point because it is unknown how much oil has been, or will be, spilled.

The Sanchi's one million barrels is about 35 million gallons. Even if all of it spilled, it would be less than the major ship disasters listed below, but more than three times the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, which is considered one of the world's worst environmental disasters.

So, how much the spill affects the environment depends on the location where it occurred. The Atlantic Empress incident listed below - the record spill from ships - saw little oil reach coastlines.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Cleaning up after the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967

There are also a lot of different types of spill. Arguably the worst was the deliberate release of up to 500 million gallons by the Iraqis in January 1991 during the Gulf War. The resultant slick covered some 10,300 sq km (4,000 sq miles).

As far as ships are concerned: </s> A team of divers of Sri Lanka Navy making a landmark turning point in the field of Diving and Salvage refloated the Royal Navy ship, Her Majesty's Naval Service SS Sagaing, 75 years after it was sunk in Trincomalee harbor by the Japanese during World War II.The 138 m long Passenger cum Cargo Ship launched on 24th December 1924 was hit by Japanese carrier air craft bomber attacks whilst at anchorage in Trincomalee harbor on 09th April 1942 and subsequently abandoned due to escalating fire onboard. On 24th August 1943, the damaged ship was sunk to be used as a pier for Naval Ships.

Sri Lanka Navy resorted to refloat the wreck which was fully submerged 35 feet under the sea in order to make sea room for expanding berthing facilities in the Trincomalee harbor. The task of salvaging and removing the ship wreck was assigned to Eastern Naval Command and it was undertaken by the Eastern Command Diving Unit headed by the Command Diving Officer (E), Captain (CDO) Krishantha Athukorala on 11th September 2017.

A comprehensive salvage plan made by CDO (E) was launched by a team of divers supervised by CPO (DIV) ALNSS Liyanage through patching up all damages and strengthening up deteriorated ship's structural parts by erecting an artificial ship side in to the sunken wreck for dewatering ship's internal volume to recover lost buoyancy. After a series of dedicated endeavors made along a period of five months, on 22nd March the wreck started to ascent to the surface proving the professionalism and instinct of SLN Divers.

LCdr Sathishka Pathirana and LCdr Shiran Buddhika assisted the operation along with 98 diving sailors permanently deployed to the project. Timely support, by the Operations, Logistics, Engineering, Electrical, Shipwright and Medical Departments and the continuous advices received from Director General Operations were highly affected in the successful endeavor. Tokyo Cement Company provided a Crane Barge almost throughout the period with a full time operator.The entire proceedings of the wreck refloating effort were orchestrated under the guidance of Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe. </s> There are fears of an environmental disaster in the East China Sea as a tanker continues to leak oil two days after colliding with a cargo ship. Chinese officials have told state media the vessel is in danger of exploding and sinking.

Rescuers attempting to reach the site were being beaten back by toxic clouds, the transportation ministry has said. The crew, 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis, remain missing despite international rescue efforts. The extent of the spill and environmental hazard are still unclear. The vessel was still ablaze on Monday morning.

The tanker had been carrying an ultra-light form of oil known as condensate which in the case of a spill can be more dangerous for the environment than regular crude. “Condensate is more likely to evaporate and mix in with the water,” John Driscoll of JTD Energy Services told the BBC. “It also can be colour- and odourless – so it is a lot harder to detect, contain and clean up.”

Though Panama-registered, the tanker Sanchi belongs to an Iranian company. The Sanchi was carrying 136,000 tonnes of Iranian oil when the vessel collided with a Chinese cargo ship on Saturday night, 165 nautical miles east of Shanghai.

The 21-strong crew of the Chinese ship were rescued. China has sent several ships to carry out search-and-rescue operations while South Korea helped with a coast guard ship and a helicopter. The US Navy had also sent a military aircraft to help with the rescue efforts. </s> An Iranian oil tanker has collided with a bulk freighter and caught fire off China’s eastern coast, leaving its crew of 32 missing.

The missing, 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis, are all from the tanker Sanchi, which spilled oil and was floating while still burning early on Sunday.

Chinese maritime authorities sent police vessels and three cleaning ships to the scene, while the South Korean coast guard also sent a ship and an airplane to aid the search effort.

The Panama-registered tanker was sailing from Iran to South Korea when it collided with the Hong Kong-registered freighter CF Crystal 160 miles from shore late on Saturday, the Ministry of Transport said.

The 21 members of the Crystal’s crew, all Chinese nationals, were rescued, the ministry said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collision.

The ship has operated under five different names in the time since it was built in 2008, according the UN-run International Maritime Organisation.

The IMO listed its registered owner as Hong Kong-based Bright Shipping Ltd, care of the National Iranian Tanker Co, a publicly traded company based in Tehran.

The National Iranian Tanker Co describes itself as operating the largest tanker fleet in the Middle East.

An official in Iran’s oil ministry said the tanker was owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co, and had been rented by a South Korean company, Hanwha Total Co. He said the tanker was on its way to South Korea.

Hanwa Total is a 50-50 partnership between the Seoul-based Hanwha Group and the French oil giant Total.

It is the second collision for a ship from the National Iranian Tanker Co in less than a year and a half.

In August 2016, one of its tankers collided with a Swiss container ship in the Singapore Strait, damaging both ships but causing no injuries or oil spill.–AP
Efforts begin in Solomon Islands to refloat a ship after an oil spill in what the government says will be a "very difficult operation."