SIMFEROPOL, December 28. A state of emergency has been introduced in Crimea to eliminate the consequences of an oil spill caused by a tanker accident in the Kerch Strait, the republic's head, Sergey Aksyonov, stated in a decree on Saturday.

"By the protocol of the meeting of the Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergencies and Ensuring Fire Safety in Crimea conducted on December 27, 2024 on the situation resulting from the December 15 crash of two tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, in the Kerch Strait, followed by the tanks' rupture and spill of oil into the waters of the Black Sea, I hereby decree <... ...> to introduce the emergency situation regime for the management bodies and forces of the Crimean Territorial Subsystem of the Unified State System of Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations," the document, published on the Crimean government's website, reads.

According to the decree, the boundaries of the zone of regional technological emergency are defined within the territories of Kerch and Leninsky urban districts. Heads of their administrations were ordered to ensure round-the-clock monitoring of the coastal zone in order to create a reserve of material resources for gathering spilled oil products.

On December 27, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Crimea Olga Shevtsova noted that a total of 655 km of coastline was surveyed from December 21 to 28. As many as 39.52 km was cleaned and 209.86 tons (7,000 bags) of oil-contaminated sand removed.

About the accident

On December 15, the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers sank in the Kerch Strait area in the Black Sea amid a storm. One sailor died, and the rest were evacuated. According to emergency services, the tankers were carrying about 9,200 tons of fuel oil. An oil spill occurred in the Black Sea as a result of the accident, and clean-up operations are underway - a working group of over 10,000 people was assembled to carry out the emergency response effort. The authorities divided the oil-contaminated coastline in the Krasnodar Region into sectors and assigned them to the region's municipalities, each of which sent at least 100 people to carry out the emergency response effort. According to Aksyonov, the spilled oil was mainly dragged towards the Krasnodar Region. The consequences of the spill in Crimea will be eliminated before the start of the tourist season, he noted.