Salvage of MT Meherjan Starts Today
Keeping oil storage chambers intact remains a challenge
Amid fear of a massive oil spillage from oil tanker MT Meherjan that sank in the Meghna River late Wednesday night, experts and officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (BIWTC), navy, coastguard, and police are preparing to conduct operation to salvage the vessel today.
But rescuing the vessel from a depth of 150 feet, keeping its liquid cargo chambers intact, remains a tough job as the river is turbulent during the ongoing monsoon, said officials.
MT Meherjan carrying little more than 5.62 lakh litres of diesel and 1.87 lakh litres of petrol capsized in the Meghna following a collision with cargo vessel MV Fazlul Huq-3 at Gobindapur-Kaliganj Point in Mehendiganj upazila of Barisal.
BIWTC's modern survey vessel Sandhani confirmed location of the sunken tanker with the help of its sonar yesterday morning.
At around 2:00pm on Saturday, BIWTC salvage vessels Hamza and Rustam arrived on the spot.
An empty oil tanker has also been sent there to unload a portion of the loaded fuel from the sunken tanker.
Admitting that the two salvage vessels do not have the capacity to lift the big oil tanker from such a depth, BIWTA officials said expert teams will try to rescue the tanker taking the help of buoyancy.
Experts said the main concern is conducting the task without damaging the storage chambers of the 220-tonne vessel that is loaded with nearly 700 tonnes of fuel.
Officials have also suggested involving private salvage companies to help rescue the ill-fated vessel.
A large area of the river has already been covered with oil from the sunken ship's engines.
If the storage chambers of the tanker are damaged during salvage operation there will be an environmental disaster stretching from the spot to the Bay of Bengal in the downstream, said environmentalists and officials involved in the rescue operation.
Sukumar Biswas, director of environment directorate in Barisal, said they have already despatched a team to take sample of the water at the site.
Fishermen and locals rescued 13 of the 14 crew members of the sunken vessel, while another crew named Nizamuddin remained missing as of writing this report.
All the crew of MV Fazlul Huq-3 fled after it anchored at Kaliganj ghat and police seized the vessel, said the officer in charge of Mehendiganj police station.
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