Russian Tanker Spills Oil Into Black Sea

MOSCOW – A Russian oil tanker broke in two in a storm in the Black Sea Sunday, spilling some 2,200 tons of fuel oil into the Kerch Strait and posing a serious environmental problem, officials said.

The tanker, Volganeft-139, broke about 3 miles from the shore.

"This problem will take several years to solve," Oleg Mitvol, head of the state environmental safety watchdog, Rosprorodnadzor, said on Vesti 24 television.

He said that the gale was preventing emergency workers from quickly collecting the spilled oil from the surface.

Maxim Stepanenko, a regional prosecutor, said that an apparent reason for the spill was the flimsy design of the tanker, which was not built to withstand a fierce storm. Such tankers were designed during the Soviet times to carry oil on rivers.

Another Russian ship carrying more than 2,000 tons of sulfur also sank in the Kerch strait Sunday. Mitvol said that while the cargo did not present an environmental threat, the ship’s tanks were full of oil which could spill.