(Adnkronos) – The collision in the North Sea yesterday between an oil tanker and a cargo ship will cause “an immediate environmental disaster”. This is the alarm raised by Hugo Tagholm, executive director of the NGO Oceana, while the Building minister Matthew Pennycook has so far limited himself to assuring that the air quality at the moment “is within safety limits”.
“This is an event of significant magnitude that can have a truly toxic legacy for those ocean sanctuaries that are so much in need of protection”, said Tagholm, following the collision between the oil tanker Stena Immaculate and the container ship Solong, an accident following which “multiple fires” broke out on both ships, with fuel leaking into the sea.
The Solong rammed the Stena Immaculate in the area of two protected marine sites, the Southern North Sea Special Area of Conservation and the Holderness Inshore Marine Protected Area, which are home to several protected species. “Oil pollution can have a very strong and long-term impact on sediments and other types of ecosystems”, said the director of the NGO, saying he was “concerned about the long-term legacy and the short-term impact”.
