25.03.2022, 08:38
Ich bin zufällig darüber gestolpert beim Suchen nach News zum Jemen: Vor der jemenitischen Westküste, d. h. im Roten Meer, liegt ein rund 45 Jahre alter, nicht mehr fahrbereiter Großtanker, der als fest verankerte Ölbeladestation dient. Die Huthis haben den 360-Meter-Kahn 2015 gekapert, seitdem wurde er nicht mehr gewartet und auch nicht entladen. Die UN befürchtet eine enorme Umweltkatastrophe, sollte das Schiff sinken oder explodieren...
Schneemann
Zitat:An aging oil tanker has become a floating time bomb. It's an environmental disaster waiting to happenhttps://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/22/opini...index.html
(CNN) - It's rare to see a maritime disaster unfold in slow motion, but that's exactly what's happening off the coast of Yemen. An aging, decaying oil tanker, the FSO Safer, has been anchored five miles off the coast of Yemen since March 2015, when Houthi rebels took control of the Red Sea coastline near the port city of Al-Hudaydah.
International officials are working to stave off a potential environmental and human catastrophe: The 362-meter (1,118-foot) Safer is filled with more than a million barrels (40 million gallons) of light, sweet crude oil -- liquid cargo which could lead to ecological disaster were the vessel to leak oil or explode. [...] Perhaps most ominously, the vessel is at risk of igniting into a waterborne fireball that could erupt with massive explosive force, wreaking even more potential ecological devastation. [...]
Another factor is the type of crude: The oil carried by the tanker is more similar to diesel fuel than the more viscous, dense North Slope crude oil that the Exxon Valdez carried, which means it would disperse very quickly, carried by the Red Sea's fickle and changeable currents. First responders rushing to the site of a spill would find frustratingly little oil to contain. [...] For years, international efforts to defuse the FSO Safer have failed. Recently, however, Ibrahim Al-Seraji, a leader of the rebels and the de facto president of Houthi-controlled Yemen, signed an agreement to transfer the contents of the Safer to another vessel so that it can be safely removed and sold.
Schneemann