Aleutian Islands Gets Shipping Protection Zone
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved protective buffer zones (“Areas to be Avoided”) around Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, approximately 10 years after a shipping disaster occurred off its coasts. In December 2004, the M/V Selendang Ayu foundered off the Aleutians amidst severe weather and was blown to shore, eventually breaking into two pieces and causing more than 300,000 gallons of toxic heavy fuel oil to spill into pristine marine waters and resulted in the deaths of six crew members. Shipping in and around the Aleutian Islands is significant. In 2012, nearly 2,000 individual vessels made more than 4,600 transits through Unimak Pass at the eastern end of the island chain.
Company Knew Tanker was Risk Before Erika Disaster
The four-month trial - the most complex of its kind in French history - may also turn into a trial of the globalized international shipping system. The aging and rusting ship, which split in two off off Britanny, on December 12, 1999, was Japanese-built, Italian-owned and controlled by two Liberian companies. The Erika was crewed by Indians, sailing under a Maltese flag, chartered by a shipping company registered in the Bahamas for a French oil company. The tribunal in Paris was told that the ship had already been identified as a potential risk. It was nonetheless allowed to leave Dunkirk in high seas, carrying a cargo of 20,000 tonnes of toxic heavy fuel oil. The ship foundered three days later.
