COLOMBO: A Panamanian-registered oil tanker burned out of control for a second day off Sri Lanka on Friday, raising fears of a major new oil spill in the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lankan navy and India coast guard fired water cannon while an air force helicopter dropped water on the drifting New Diamond.
More Indian navy vessels were heading to the scene to help fight the blaze on the tanker which was carrying 270,000 tons of crude and 1,700 tons of diesel.
One Filipino crew member was confirmed to have died in an engine room explosion on Thursday which sparked the alert, the Sri Lankan navy said.
The other 22 crew — five Greek and 17 Filipino — were taken off the 330-meter (1,080-foot) vessel and the fire had not spread to the cargo by mid-morning Friday, officials said.
The ship was on its way from Kuwait to the eastern Indian port of Paradip when it issued a distress signal 60 kilometers (38 miles) from Sri Lanka’s east coast.
As the fire grew, the stricken vessel drifted about 10 kilometers closer to the shore, Sri Lankan officials said.
India’s coast guard said there was a two-meter crack in the New Diamond’s hull about 10 meters above the water line.
Both India and Sri Lanka have deployed reconnaissance planes to track the ship, officials said. However, Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Center said there was no immediate danger of a spill.
“It is not as bad as it seems,” DMC head Sudantha Ranasinghe told AFP. “The fire has not spread to the cargo. Once the fire is put out, the vessel will be towed further away into deeper waters.”
He said authorities were considering a ship-to-ship transfer of the crude before salvaging the tanker.
The vessel is larger than the Japanese bulk carrier MV Wakashio, which crashed into a reef in Mauritius in July leaking more than 1,000 tons of oil into the island nation’s pristine waters.
Sri Lanka’s neighbor Maldives has raised concerns that a possible oil spill from the New Diamond could cause serious environmental damage.
The Maldives depends on fisheries and tourism and the country has one of the world’s best coral eco systems.
Maldivian minister at the president’s office, Ahmed Naseem, called for precautionary measures in the Indian Ocean archipelago of 1,192 coral islands.
The Maldives is located about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) southwest of Sri Lanka.
“Maldives needs to watch this oil spill carefully and take all precautions to prevent it from reaching her shores,” Naseem said on Twitter. “This could be a major disaster.”
Raging tanker fire sparks fears of a new Indian Ocean disaster
https://arab.news/p7z54
Raging tanker fire sparks fears of a new Indian Ocean disaster
- Sri Lankan navy and India coast guard fired water cannon while an air force helicopter dropped water on the drifting New Diamond
- The ship was on its way from Kuwait to the eastern Indian port of Paradip when it issued a distress signal 60 kilometers (38 miles) from Sri Lanka’s east coast
Kosovo, Serbia ‘need to normalize’ relations
- Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products
PRISTINA: Kosovo and Serbia need to “normalize” their relations, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said, several days before legislative elections where he is seeking to extend his term with more solid backing.
Kurti has been in office since 2021 and previous accords signed with Serbia — which does not recognize the independence of its former province — have yet to be respected.
“We need to normalize relations with Serbia,” said Kurti. “But normalizing relations with a neighboring authoritarian regime that doesn’t recognize you, that also doesn’t admit to the crimes committed during the war, is quite difficult,” he added.
Tensions between the two neighbors are regularly high.
“We do have a normalization agreement,” Kurti said, referring to the agreement signed under the auspices of the EU in 2023.
“We must implement it, which implies mutual recognition between the countries, at least de facto recognition.”
But to resume dialogue, Serbia “must hand over Milan Radoicic,” a Serb accused of plotting an attack in northern Kosovo in 2023, Kurti asserted, hoping that “the EU, France, and Germany will put pressure” on Belgrade to do so.
Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products and agreeing to accept up to 50 migrants from third countries extradited by the US. So far, only one has arrived.
“We are not asking for any financial assistance in return,” Kurti emphasized. “We are doing this to help the US, which is a partner, an ally, a friend,” added the prime minister, who did not rule out making similar agreements with European countries.
Unable to secure enough seats in the February 2025 parliamentary elections, Kurti was forced to call early elections on Sunday, after 10 months of political deadlock during which the divided parliament failed to form a coalition.
“We need a decisive victory. In February, we won 42.3 percent, and this time we want to exceed 50 percent,” he said.
