A Russian oil tanker carrying thousands of tons of oil products broke apart during a severe storm on Sunday, spilling oil into the Kerch Strait. Another tanker also got into distress after sustaining damage, Russian officials said.
The ships were in the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, when they sent out distress signals.
Russian investigators opened two criminal cases to investigate possible safety violations after at least one person was killed when the 136-meter-long tanker Volgoneft 212 with 15 people on board split in half as its bow sank.
State media footage showed waves washing over the deck.
The 1969 Russian-flagged ship was damaged and ran aground, officials said.
Unconfirmed videos posted on Telegram showed blackened water in stormy seas and a half-submerged tanker.
The second Russian-flagged ship, the 132-meter-long Volgoneft 239, drifted away after being damaged, the Emergencies Ministry said. The crew consists of 14 people and was built in 1973.
Key route for the export of fuel and grain
The Kerch Strait is an important route for the export of Russian grain and is also used for the export of crude oil, fuel oil and liquefied natural gas.
Ukraine accused Russia in an international court in September of violating maritime law by trying to keep the Kerch Strait under its sole control, which Moscow rejects as unfounded.
According to rescue workers, one person died, but twelve other people were evacuated from the first tanker. Eleven of them were hospitalized, two of them in serious condition, TASS news agency quoted Alexei Kuznetsov, an adviser to the health minister, as saying.
The Emergencies Ministry said it was still in contact with the other tanker and its crew after the ship ran aground 80 meters offshore near the port of Taman at the southern end of the Kerch Strait.
The tankers each have a loading capacity of around 4,200 tonnes of oil products.
Officials did not provide details on the extent of the spill or the reasons why one of the tankers suffered such severe damage.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to set up a working group to deal with the rescue operation and mitigate the impact of the fuel disaster, news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying after Putin met with the emergency and environment ministers.
Russia said more than 50 people and equipment, including Mi-8 helicopters and rescue tugs, had been sent to the area.
Svetlana Radionova, head of Russia’s natural resources agency Rosprirodnadzor, said specialists were assessing the damage at the site of the incident.
