Mauritius oil spill: PM Jugnauth says almost all leaked fuel has been pumped out

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth has said that almost all fuel oil that had leaked from Japanese-owned ship off the country's coast has been pumped out. He noted that the entire operation had been a race against time amid fears of the ship breaking down and causing more damage.

The MV Wakashio was believed to have been carrying 4,000 tonnes of fuel oil but ran aground on a coral reef on July 25. According to reports, the pumped out oil has been transferred to shore by helicopter and to another ship owned by the same firm, Nagashiki Shipping. 

Mauritius is known to be the home of world-famous coral reefs. France had sent a military aircraft with pollution-control equipment from its nearby island of Réunion and Japan has deployed a six-member team to assist the efforts made to contain the environmental disaster.

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At the site of the spill in the south-east of the island, Mauritius coast guard and several police units are also present. Mauritius PM is reported to have said that over 3,000 of the 4,000 tonnes of oil from the ship’s fuel storages has been pumped out. The remaining is on board somewhere else. 

Even Police spokesperson Shiva Cooten has reportedly assured that even though there is still work to do, the situation is ‘under control’. Previously, police chief Khemraj Servansing had informed that the cracks in the ship “keep increasing” and the authorities had ramped-up their deployment plan, along with the French Navy making provisions for high sea booms. 

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Mauritius PM declared emergency

On August 7, Mauritius PM had declared a state of emergency over the oil spill and had called for international assistance. Since then, volunteers have been assembling straw from fields and filling up sacks to make barriers against the oil spilt. According to reports, even the satellite images showed a dark slick spreading in the turquoise waters near the wetlands that government considers ‘very sensitive’ to the marine ecology.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said that when the biodiversity is in “peril”, there is an urgency to take action. However, as per media agency reports, activists and environmentalists have still raised questions as to why the government did not take more swift action to control the spill when it had occurred on July 25 on a reef. 

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(Image Credits: AP)