Mauritius News

Two crew members from a tugboat involved in cleaning up an oil spill off Mauritius were killed late on Monday when their vessel collided with a barge in bad weather, a local lawmaker said.Four other members of the crew were rescued by helicopter and two were still missing, Mahend Gungerpersad, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour Party, told Reuters on Tuesday."This incident is going to add to the prevailing anger," he said, referring to weekend protests over the handling…

Dead dolphins that washed up in Mauritius near the site of an oil spill have so far been found to have wounds on their bodies but no trace of oil, preliminary autopsy results released on Thursday said.Environmentalists are urgently seeking an explanation for the mysterious deaths of 27 dolphins which washed ashore on Wednesday and Thursday, to determine whether they were killed by the spill. Scientists fear the toxic spill could hurt wildlife for many years on islands that depend on tourism.So far, veterinarians have examined only two of the dolphins.

Seven more dead dolphins were found on a Mauritius beach on Thursday, a government official said, a day after 17 carcasses were washed up near an oil spill caused by a Japanese ship that struck a coral reef."We found seven more dolphins this morning in a state of decomposition," Jasvin Sok Appadu from the fisheries ministry told Reuters.Results from an autopsy conducted on the 17 dolphins found on Wednesday are expected on Thursday.The spill came from the Japanese-owned MV Wakashio, which ran aground on July 25 and began to spill oil about a week later.

Japan's Nagashiki Shipping, the owner of a bulk carrier that ran aground in Mauritius, causing an oil spill in one of the world's most pristine environments, said Wednesday it awaited judicial decisions after two of the ship's officers were arrested.Nagashiki issued a statement on Wednesday after the arrest overnight in Mauritius of the captain and of the bulk carrier, MV Wakashio, and another of the ship's officers on charges of endangering safe navigation. It did not provide…

Some corals have lived for centuries at the fringes of Mauritius. Now smothered for days in heavy fuel oil spilled from a wrecked Japanese ship nearby, parts of those reefs may be in trouble.The full impact of the toxic spill is still unfolding, scientists say. As the Indian Ocean island's residents scramble to mop up the oil slicks and clumps, they are seeing dead eels and fish floating in the water, as fuel-soaked seabirds limp onto shore.Satellite images also show the 1,000…

A Japanese bulk carrier that ran aground off Mauritius and has leaked at least an estimated 1,000 tonnes of oil, passed the latest annual inspection in March with no problems, Japan's ClassNK inspection body said on Tuesday.The ship, MV Wakashio, is owned by Nagashiki Shipping and operated by Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd.Mitsui OSK said earlier on Tuesday it had set up a task force and was cooperating with the authorities in Japan and Mauritius.The company said it was preparing to dispatch personnel to the site."We will do our utmost towards resolving the situation quickly," the company said in a stat