Russian Officials Declare Federal Emergency After a Massive Oil Spill in the Black Sea
One person was killed as a result of the spill.
Published Dec. 27 2024, 1:30 p.m. ET
Russians are hard at work trying to clean up a massive oil spill that took place during the night of Dec. 15, 2024, dumping thousands of tons of oil into the water of the Black Sea.
The tanker was overtaken during a massive winter storm, which left several of the tanker's workers stranded in the sea while they waited to be rescued.
Sadly, one person perished off the coast of Crimea as a result of the spill.
Here's everything that we know so far about the oil spill, including what Russian officials and volunteers are doing to help manage the toxic fuel as it begins to wash up on nearby shores.
Russia declared a federal emergency after an oil spill in the Black Sea.
According to Newsweek, an oil tanker was "split in half" during a storm, spilling an estimated 4,000 tons of oil into the water. The incident happened in the Kerch Strait portion of the Black Sea, located between Crimea and Russia. The ship, Volgoneft 212, sank halfway into the rough sea, and the crew required rescue via aircraft.
The oil made its way to the shores of Krasnodar Krai, prompting the region to contact Russian President Vladimir Putin for federal help. As of Dec. 24, 2024, 35 miles of Russia's coast had been impacted by the spill, which quickly became too much for local municipalities to handle, according to CNN.
In fact, the cleanup crews are manned by a large number of volunteers who have since reached out to Putin for support.
“Local authorities are not coping, they do not have the resources for this," one volunteer said in a video addressed to Putin and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. "The only resource is ordinary people with shovels, such a catastrophe cannot be defeated with shovels!”
For his part, Putin seems to blame the environmental disaster directly on the ship's captains.
As of Dec. 26, 2024, officials around the region had declared both regional and federal emergencies, which should allow more money and resources to be allocated to the disaster. Whether it will be enough to make a difference remains to be seen, especially when it comes to the complaints The Economic Times reports are being made about the amount of the disaster funds and the coordination involved.
What was the worst oil spill in history?
While 4,000 tons is arguably a massive amount of oil to spill into the water, which will devastate the plants and animals in and around the Black Sea, it hardly ranks near the top of the worst spills in history.
In 1991, Iraqi soldiers released between 380 and 520 million gallons of black gold into the gulf when they set fire to Kuwait's oil wells. More recently, BP's Deepwater Horizon leaked a jaw-dropping 206 million gallons of oil, which devastated the region.
While massive oil spills have become a bit rarer, they are still destructive and can cause damage that can last for generations, highlighting just another reason why it's important to move away from our reliance on fossil fuels and find more sustainable options.