Aerial view of a ship at sea.
Suriyapong Thongsawang | Second | Getty Photographs
Three fires blazed on a Greek-flagged oil tanker within the Pink Sea, the UK Maritime Commerce Operations stated on Friday, sooner or later after rescuers evacuated its crew within the wake of an assault by Yemeni Houthi militants.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who management Yemen’s most populous areas, stated on Thursday that they’d attacked the Sounion oil tanker as a part of their 10-month marketing campaign towards business delivery to help Palestinians in the struggle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Houthis first broken the tanker on Wednesday with repeated assaults that precipitated a fireplace and a lack of engine energy. A European warship later rescued her crew of 25. The uncrewed vessel was anchored between Yemen and Eritrea, a maritime safety supply advised Reuters on Thursday.
On Friday, UKMTO stated in an advisory that it had obtained experiences of three fires on the vessel, which “appears to be drifting.” Later within the day, the Houthis posted a video on social media that purportedly confirmed them setting the tanker on hearth.
The broken tanker, carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, poses an environmental hazard, the EU’s Pink Sea naval mission Aspides stated.
“A potential spill could lead to disastrous consequences for the region’s marine environment,” the Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority stated in a publish on the social media website X on Friday.
The biggest recorded ship-source spill was in 1979, when about 287,000 tonnes of oil escaped from the Atlantic Empress after it collided with one other crude provider within the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Tobago throughout a storm, in keeping with Worldwide Tanker House owners Air pollution Federation.
The Sounion was the third vessel operated by Athens-based Delta Tankers to return underneath Houthi assault this month.
The Houthis stated it attacked the tanker partly as a result of Delta Tankers’ violated its ban on “entry to the ports of occupied Palestine,” Houthi navy spokesman Yahya Saree stated in a televised speech.
“Delta Tankers is doing everything it can to move the vessel (and cargo). For security reasons, we are not in a position to comment further,” the corporate stated in an announcement on Friday.
