Four tonnes of oil-containing liquid cleaned up at Anapa port after Kerch Strait tanker wrecks - Russian Emergency Situations Ministry

KRASNODAR. Dec 20 (Interfax) - Aircraft and specialists of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry are examining Black Sea waters in the Krasnodar Territory, and four tonnes of oil-containing liquid have been cleaned up at the Anapa port to date, the ministry press service said.

The monitoring is ongoing, and aircraft allow detecting the spill at the sea with high precision and drafting cleanup plans. Ships are also conducting monitoring, it said.

"The coastline is being examined and cleaned up. Rescuers and volunteers have removed 3.3 tonnes of polluted sand and soil. A hundred square meters of waters have been treated with sorbent and four tonnes of oil-containing liquid have been cleaned up in the Anapa port," the press service said.

Some 6,000 specialists and over 250 vehicles are at work, it said.

On December 15 two tankers, Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239, carrying fuel oil and 13 and 14 people, respectively, crashed in the Kerch Strait, killing one crewmember. All others were evacuated.

The incident led to an oil spill. Monitoring of the coastline detected spots of fuel oil. The petroleum products washed ashore along about 35 kilometers of the coastline, from the village of Veselovka in Temryuk District as far as Blagoveshchenskaya in the city of Anapa. Later the contaminated beach line extended to 49 kilometers.

Blagoveshchenskaya and four settlements in the Temryuk district declared an emergency.