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Climate and science reporter, BBC News
Tom Ingham
Climate and science team, BBC News
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Environmental organisations and the UK authorities are assessing how damaging the collision of an oil tanker and a cargo ship in the North Sea will be for marine species and nearby wildlife populations.
It’s still too early to tell whether it will have a major impact, and weather conditions in coming days will be a major factor.
But a lot will depend on exactly which toxic chemicals have been spilled and how much of them.
What might be on board?
Maritime operations company, Crowley, which was managing the oil tanker the MV Stena Immaculate, has confirmed that it was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 containers at the time of the incident.
It was not clear on the status of all the containers but Crowley said one had “ruptured” and was leaking fuel into the sea.
The contents of the cargo ship, the Solong, which crashed into the tanker have been less clear.
Lloyds List, a shipping data company, said on Monday that it was carrying sodium cyanide.
But on Tuesday Ernst Russ, owners of the cargo ship said: “We are able to confirm that there are no containers on board ladened with sodium cyanide.
“There are four empty containers that have previously contained the hazardous chemical and these containers will continue to be monitored.”
It remains unclear if the ship was carrying other contents at the time of
The post How bad could the ship collision be for the environment? first appeared on EnviroLink Network.