Malaysia begins to mop up oil slick from sunken cruise ship

Malaysia begins to mop up oil slick from sunken cruise ship

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian emergency teams on Sunday began an operation to mop up a giant oil slick seeping from a sunken luxury cruise liner whose 1,000 passengers were plucked to safety three days ago.

Maritime rescue and coordination center official G. Jayakrishnan said ships had been told to temporarily avoid the busy waters where the Sun Vista caught fire last Thursday and sank.

"The operation began at about 9 a.m. (8 a.m. Jakarta time). Seven vessels from the marine and environment departments are now engaged in cleaning up the oil pollution," he told AFP.

"We have issued navigational warnings to other ships to alert them of the shipwreck and the oil spill, and to ask them to keep out of the area until it is cleared."

The disaster teams are expected to work overnight to clean up the oil which is slowly seeping out of the sunken vessel, Jayakrishnan said, but he added that the situation was "under control."

According to official figures the oil slick is 19 kilometers long, 0.8 kilometers wide and one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick. Reports indicated that the Bahamas-registered Sun Vista was carrying an estimated 2,000 tons of fuel oil and another 100 tons of diesel.

But unlike crude oil, officials said diesel can easily evaporate in clear weather and the slick was not expected to pose a significant environmental danger.

The Sun Vista was sailing through the Straits of Malacca to Singapore from the Thai island of Phuket on the last leg of a six-day cruise when fire broke out in its engine room last Thursday afternoon.

Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik said Sunday that Malaysian authorities would contact the ship's Singaporean owner, Sun Cruises, to discuss arrangements to salvage the wreck.

"We will contact the owner under the law and they will let us know how they are going to salvage the ship," Ling was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Both the Malaysian marine department and Sun Cruises have begun separate investigations into the cause of the incident.