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January 6, 2025 | 02:00 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Russia declared a regional state of emergency in Crimea on Saturday, January 4, 2024. The announcement came as workers cleared tons of contaminated sand and soil on both sides of the Kerch Strait after an oil spill in the Black Sea last month.
As reported by Reuters, Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-appointed governor of the city of Sevastopol, said the new small traces of pollution required immediate action and declared a state of emergency in the city. This condition gives authorities more power to make quick decisions such as ordering residents to evacuate their homes.
Crimea was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. The annexation by Russia has not been recognized by most other countries. Meanwhile, the Kerch Strait stretches between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and separates the Kerch Peninsula in Crimea from the Krasnodar region in Russia.
Rescue workers have now cleared more than 86,000 metric tons of contaminated sand and soil, the emergencies ministry said on Saturday. Oil is leaking from two old tankers that were hit by a storm on December 15. One sank and the other ran aground.
More than 10,000 people have been working to shovel thick, foul-smelling fuel oil from sandy beaches around Anapa, a summer resort. Environmental groups have reported the deaths of dolphins, porpoises and seabirds in the incident.
The Emergencies Ministry said on the Telegram messaging app that oil-contaminated soil had been collected in Russia’s wider Kuban region and in Crimea.
The ministry published video footage of dozens of workers in protective suits loading bags of soil into excavators and others scooping dirt out of the sand with shovels.
Russia’s Transport Ministry said this week that experts had determined that about 2,400 metric tons of oil products had spilled into the sea, a smaller spill than previously feared.
When the disaster struck, state media reported that the stricken tankers, both more than 50 years old, were carrying about 9,200 metric tons, or 62,000 barrels, of oil products in total.
The spill involved M100 grade heavy fuel oil, which freezes at 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit). And, unlike other oil products, it does not float to the surface but sinks to the bottom or remains suspended in the water column.
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