Doha: The Ministers Council in Yemen discussed in its extraordinary meeting on Monday the efforts to contain the environmental and health impacts resulting from the incident of Champion 1, formerly known as Shang Yang, off the coast of Mukalla in Hadramout, stressing that all government agencies are taking all the measures to contain the repercussions of this stranded carrier.
They pointed to the emergency plans that have been prepared to contain the pollution and ongoing operations to dump diesel fuel in a safe way and get rid of the rest of it as soon as possible.
The Minister of Transport and Hadramout governor have both visited the site of the tanker, and listened to the technical team trying to offload the cargo. Thus far around 2,000 tons of the 4,500 tons of diesel fuel onboard has been offloaded to other vessels.
The cabinet promised to properly investigate the accident to avoid similar calamities in the future and also stressed that it would seek to prosecute those found guilty of causing the disaster.
The tanker lost power off Mukalla around nine days ago, drifting and losing some of its cargo of diesel fuel which has washed up on nearby beaches. [23/07/13]
