Mumbai oil spill worsens as ship sinks

Mumbai, Aug 9: The Mumbai oil spill continues to worsen as the ship carrying fuel is sinking and over 300 containers carrying oil have already tumbled into the water.

Two Panamanian cargo ships, namely MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia-111, collided on Saturday, Aug 7 off the Mumbai coast causing the fast spreading oil spill that is posing massive environmental hazard.

"MSC Chitra has tilted 80 degrees and the total oil spill is nearly 50 tonnes," said Arun Singh, Commandant (Operations), Coast Guard said, adding that 300 containers carrying oil have tumbled into the water so far.

Even as the Navy and the coast guard continued the anti-pollution operations for the third day to neutralise the oil spill, the officials are yet to locate the leakage.

"Traffic has been suspended as the containers are still sighted floating into the channel thus making navigation hazardous," a Coast Guard official said.

Chitra is said to have been carrying about 1,200 containers with over 266 tonnes of fuel.

Fishing has also been suspended until the spill is contained.

OneIndia News