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Oil leaks from Mauritius mutiny ship

Oil spill booms have been put in place around the grounded bulker Benita with reports over the weekend of bunker fuel washing up on the nearby shoreline.

An attempted mutiny, followed by a huge fight among the all Filipino crew of the bulk carrier Benita led to its grounding on reefs off Mauritius early on Friday morning.

Divers are assessing the ship today with early reports suggesting three out of five holds have been damaged. Five Ocean Salvage is starting to pump out the ship’s bunker fuel today.

Meanwhile, the engineer who was medevaced from the ship, Alvin Maderse, has had to be put into an induced coma as his situation deterioriated over the weekend. The engineer was struck in the head by a metal pipe by a fellow crewmember, Omar Palmes Taton, who has since been held in a police cell charged with aggravated assault.

Investigators are interviewing the master and crew of the ship to identify what happened.

Meanwhile, the national coast guard is being questioned how it failed to notice the ship had entered Mauritius waters before it hit the rocks.

 

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. Benita? Benta more like.
    Hopefully all those involved will lose their tickets and other qualifications.

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