MELITOPOL, January 31. /TASS/. Fuel oil from the tankers that wrecked in the Kerch Strait in mid-December has once again been deteceted along the 14-kilometer coastal section in the eastern part of the Berdyansk Spit in the Azov Sea following storms, according to the Berdyansk city administration.
"A small amount of oil, much smaller than before, has been found in the eastern part of the Berdyansk Spit after a storm. Along the same 14-kilometer section. Some 200 people are currently engaged in the effort to clean up the coast," a spokesman for the administration told TASS, adding that no traces of oil have been spotted in the central part of the city.
"Removed oil is being taken to a specially assigned place. When the operation is over, monitoring will continue. <…> In case more oil is found, cleanup operation will be organized swiftly," the press service quoted Berdyansk’s mayor, Alexander Saulenko.
Zaporozhye Region governor Yevgeny Balitsky announced on January 14 that cleanup operations on the Azov Sea coast had ended, with as much as 59,700 tons of polluted sand being removed from a 14.5 kilometer stretch along the Berdyansk Spit.
The Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers sank on December 15. According to emergency services, the tankers were carrying about 9,200 tons of fuel oil. The accident led to an oil spill in the Black Sea. According to the Russian Ministry of Transport, some 2,400 tons of oil products leaked into the Black Sea, much less than the initial estimates.