Singapore Container Ship Casualty – China Cleans Up

China continues salvage, clean-up operations on stranded container ship off Fujian coast

An oil belt floating off the coast of southeast China's Fujian province has been mostly cleaned up from the Singapore-registered ship, Barelie which struck a nearby reef recently, local maritime authorities said.

About five cubic meters of heavy oil and four tonnes of wastewater have been salvaged from the spill so far, with no new spills detected, according to the Fujian Maritime Rescue Center.

Rescuers have unloaded 216 shipping containers from the ship, finding no dangerous goods inside, the center said, adding that container unloading and pollution control efforts are still under way.

The Singapore-registered Bareli is aground near Jiangyin Port while on route from the city of Ningbo to the provincial capital of Fuzhou. All 21 of the ship's crew members have been rescued.

At the time of the accident the ship had 1,137 tonnes of fuel left and the Fujian Maritime Rescue Center has dispatched 45 vessels from nearby cleaning and salvage companies and organizations to join the cleanup efforts.

Local marine and environmental protection departments are making extra efforts to monitor the impact of the oil spill and a marine patrol ship arrived at the site of the spill  to monitor the situation.