Major environmental damage risk after North Sea oil tanker collision, warns Greenpeace scientist

North Sea collision clean-up must be cautious warns Greenpeace scientistThe Independent

Transcript

00:00There is a risk of major environmental damage after a cargo ship collided with an oil

00:04tanker in the North Sea on Monday. A massive fireball erupted when the ships collided off

00:09the coast of Yorkshire. The oil tanker was filled with highly flammable jet fuel,

00:14while on board the cargo ship were 15 containers of toxic sodium cyanide.

00:19What will happen with the aviation fuel that spilled is that it will tend to distribute

00:23itself in a very thin layer over a very large area of water. Sodium cyanide is a very toxic

00:30material indeed and it has been used actually in the past for poisoning fish deliberately when

00:35people have gone reef fishing. These toxic materials spilling into the North Sea could

00:39devastate marine life and seabirds in the nearby Humber estuary. The biggest concern to the

00:44environment is the degree to which the materials can disperse, how far they disperse, whether the

00:51the waste will make its way down to the seabed as well and into the ecosystem

00:58of the seabed species. But yeah, the main concern is I think the seabirds and the

01:05impact on the intertidal as well. Attention is quickly turning to the

01:08clean up and ways of limiting environmental damage. The strategy has to be to get equipment

01:14in to contain oil spills into the area, to get heavy lifting equipment in and barges in to be

01:21able to recover as many containers that have been lost overboard.

01:24But to do all of this in a way that doesn't put people at any risk.