Black Sea storm: Response
Response
Immediately after the incident, the weather conditions at sea made operations in the field difficult. The main activities performed in the first few days were search and rescue and manual shoreline clean-up operations.
According to the Sea Coordination Emergency and Rescue Centre in Kerch, by 21 November 2007, more than 500 personnel from the Ministry of Emergencies were involved in shoreline clean-up work; 30 boats were employed for surveying and 15 ship-cleaning units were set to work in the Kerch Strait.
By 21 November 2007, the total amount of the mixture of oil, sand, polluted waste (marine vegetation, plastic etc.) collected on the mainland on the Ukrainian side was approximately 1,700 tonnes. By 23 November, 13,000 tonnes of polluted waste had been recovered on the Russian shoreline.
It appears that more than 150 dead birds were collected in Ukraine and around 100 more in Russia. Action was taken to clean up oiled birds.
The Ukrainian authorities had never experienced such a significant pollution incident.
European assistance
On 14 November 2007, assistance was offered by the European Commission to both the Ukrainian and Russian authorities and on Friday 16 November 2007, the Ukrainian authorities accepted this assistance. As part of the European Community Civil Protection Mechanism, the Monitoring and Information Centre appointed a team of 5 European experts, including a representative of Cedre. The team was sent on 18 November to Ukraine and was present until 24 November.
The objectives of the mission of the EU team were to assist the Ukrainian authorities in assessing the environmental impact of the disaster; to observe the development of the pollution and to advise on remediation needs.
Cleaning up the Ukranian shoreline (Source:
Cedre)
Last update: November 2007
Last update: April
2006