New Zealand’s stricken container ship splits in two

A container ship that ran aground off the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island in October has split in two in rough seas raising fears of a further oil spill.

When Rena, the 775 foot Liberian-flagged container ship, originally ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef, it caused 350 tonnes of oil to wash up on New Zealand’s beaches after the vessel’s fuel tank was breached. The disaster claimed the lives of thousands of sea dwelling birds and swarms of fish. The incident on October 5th last year was New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster.

Maritime New Zealand’s aerial footage (see video) of the stricken ship now shows the vessel in two sections after stormy weather battered Rena over the weekend.

“While reports at this stage indicate there has not been a significant release of oil, with the Rena in its current fragile state, a further release is likely,” said National on Scene Commander, Alex van Wijngaarden. Debris and cargo has now started to wash-up on the nearby Waihi beach, with teams being deployed to aid in the clear-up operation after items such as timber, milk powder and plastics began to wash ashore. According to Maritime New Zealand, a total of twelve containers have come ashore, while mine-clearing equipment is being used by New Zealand’s defense forces to gather debris that have found their way into nearby harbor channels. An additional 21 containers have been tagged with buoys, which will be removed from the sea when weather conditions improve. “There is inevitably going to be a lot of mess and disturbance for the next few days while this is cleaned up and we would like people to use common sense and stay well away from the debris,” added van Wijngaarden. 

Gerry Brownlee, New Zealand’s Transport Minister, stated today that as of yet the split does not appear to be of any danger to humans or the environment, but has reiterated that authorities are gearing up for what could be another potential disaster. “The centre of that ship has a keel section through it, we know that some oil leaked into that section, we just don't know how much.There is one other tank there that we believe is sealed so they're working on the worst case situation of there being about 100 tonnes of oil.” Tauranga's oiled wildlife centre has also been reactivated with the centre’s oil response division preparing for a second clean up operation by placing booms in sensitive areas along the coast.
 

Image 01: Maritime New Zealand

Image 02: Maritime New Zealand

Video: Maritime New Zealand