'Marine flora, fauna to have adverse impact' of MV Rak oil spill!

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August 8, 2011 / Agencies, Mumbai / DC.

Indian beachgoers walk on the oil covered shores of the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai - AFP.

Despite authorities claiming that the oil spill from cargo vessel MV Rak off Mumbai coast has decreased in quantum, experts have voiced concern over the ecological impact of the spill on marine life.

"The marine biota, including flora and fauna, will certainly have negative consequences due to oil spill," Dr Swapna Prabhu, Systematic Botanist/Taxonomist with the Bombay Natural History Society, said here today.

"The coastal areas of Mumbai and some areas of Raigad have threats of oil slicks. As the oil is already evident on Juhu beach, this concern is raised," she said.

"It is very unfortunate that the oil slick is evident at the peak time of fish breeding as well as flowering and fruiting season of most of the mangrove species. Even the thin layer of oil persisting for significant time will kill marine fauna," Prabhu said.

In case the oil slick reaches mangrove patches around this coast, last year's saplings will be probably wiped out, Prabhu said.

"As this is the fruiting season, this batch of propagules if it gets contaminated with oil, will be destroyed and there will be no regeneration as a result. The consequences may affect the size of population of mangroves for long term," she said.

According to a statement by the ministry of defence here, the rate of oil spill has reduced to around 1 tonne per hour, as compared to 1.5-2 tonnes per hour on Sunday.

This has been confirmed by an hour-long aerial recce of the oil spill area in the Arabian Sea off south Mumbai conducted by the Indian Coast Guard on Monday morning.

A defence spokesman said the oil slick is visibly thin and can be seen as a broken silvery sheen extending upto two miles from the site where the cargo carrier sank on Thursday afternoon.

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MUMBAI COAST: Abandoned ship M.T. Pavit's sea journey being 're-created'!

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August 5, 2011 / IANS, Mumbai / DC.

Taking a serious view of the grounding of the abandoned tanker M.T. Pavit at Versova Beach (north-west Mumbai), the Indian maritime authorities have begun a 're-creation' of the journey of the vessel in the past nearly five weeks, a maritime official said here on Friday.

The Directorate-General of Shipping (DGS) has also sought details of the Panama-flagged vessel, from its owners M/S. Pavit Shipping Lines, and its managers, M/s. Prime Tankers, both in Dubai and its insurers, said the official, requesting anonymity.

The investigations would include examination of the 'currents charts' and 'wind pattern' reports to study how and why the vessel drifted to the Mumbai coast, he said.

The maritime authorities will also check the position or movements of Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard and Coastal Police patrol vessels within a 12 nautical miles distance - over which Indian security authorities have jurisdiction - since M.T. Pavit reached here virtually unnoticed and sprang a surprise on the authorities here.

After it developed an engine snag following a fire and water ingression, the vessel was abandoned by its crew off Rak-Al-Madrakah along the Oman coast on June 29.

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Juhu Beach Headache, M.V. PAVIT: Authorities to probe how vessel evaded the radar!

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Staff Reporter, The Hindu / MUMBAI, August 3, 2011.

Its chances of refloating are greater now. The ship was found floating in high tide: DG Shipping

Authorities will look into how m.v. Pavit, the unmanned, adrift vessel found grounded off the city's Juhu-Versova beach, evaded the radars of all the three agencies taking care of coastal security — the Navy, the Coast Guard and the marine police.

“We will see in our inquiry why in the 100 hours the ship was in Indian waters, the detection did not happen. The agencies concerned will have to look into it,” Satish Agnihotri, Director-General, Shipping, said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government ordered a high-level probe into incident.

Mr. Agnihotri said that though the DG Shipping was informed in the beginning of July that Indian crew members were rescued from the ship in the Oman Gulf, the western media and the UKMTO (UK Maritime Trade Operations) later reported that the ship had sunk. “Thus we were not very alert about it. We don't monitor the movement of ships in the Oman Gulf. We monitor it only in the Indian waters,” he said.

PARTIALLY AFLOAT

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2317199.ece

Juhu Beach Headache: Ghost ship sinks India's coastal defences claims!

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Vinaya Deshpande, Meena Menon & Praveen Swami, The Hindu / MUMBAI, August 3, 2011.

Children play near m.v. Pavit, a Panama-flagged vessel that ran aground on the Juhu beach - AP.

m.v. Pavit drifted undetected for over 100 hours to Mumbai's shores

India's post-26/11 coastal defences have been brutally exposed by Pavit, a 1,000-tonne Panama-flagged merchant vessel, which ran aground on Mumbai's Juhu shore on Sunday, undetected by the new, three-tier security ring on which at least Rs. 700 million has been spent.

The ship, which was abandoned by its crew last month and reported sunk, drifted for more than a hundred hours through India's maritime territory before being detected late on Sunday afternoon.

The Navy, responsible for security beyond 12 nautical miles; the Coast Guard, which patrols the zone between 5 and 12 nautical miles; and the newly created maritime police, all failed to detect it.

There was no official word, though, on who was responsible for the failure — the second in recent weeks of an abandoned ship being washed up here.

In October 2010, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said India had made “significant progress” in improving its coastal defences since 26/11. In particular, he pointed to the setting up of control rooms to coordinate patrolling by the Navy, the Coast Guard and the maritime police.

Alarmed by a series of pirate attacks on maritime traffic off India's shores, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in January this year that coastal security was on the government's “immediate agenda.”

Satish Agnihotri, Director-General of Shipping, said inquiries were needed to establish “for nearly 100 hours when the ship was in Indian waters why the detection did not happen.” He refused comment, though, on who might have been responsible, saying it would not “be appropriate on my part to talk about the sister agencies.”

Long-standing fears

Long-standing fears that terrorists could exploit gaps in India's coastal defences were underlined on 26/11, when a 10-man Lashkar-e-Taiba assault team sailed undetected into the city on a hijacked fishing boat. Experts have since warned that terrorists could also load ships with explosives, or even biological and chemical weapons.

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2317195.ece

MUMBAI HEADACHE: Another ship grounded at Mumbai's Juhu beach!

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PTI / The Hindu / MUMBAI, August 1, 2011.

Panama-flagged vessel m.v. Pavit, which has a capacity to hold 1,000 tonnes of cargo, ran aground near the Juhu beach in Mumbai early on Sunday morning. In June, m.v. Wisdom got stuck on the beach and was salvaged after about three weeks. Photo: Shashi Ashiwal.

In a repeat of the m.v. Wisdom episode, a much-smaller cargo vessel ran aground near the Juhu beach in north-west Mumbai on Sunday, officials said here.

The Panama-flagged vessel M.V. Pavit, which has a capacity to hold 1,000 tonnes of cargo (as against m.v. Wisdom's 10,000 tonnes) ran aground near Seven Bungalows in the morning and was suspected to have drifted from the Persian Gulf, they said.

M.V. Wisdom had got stuck on Juhu beach in June, and could be salvaged after about three weeks.

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article2311514.ece

MUMBAI HEADACHE: Wisdom afloat again!

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Have you read, “Mayhem of the Miserables!” available @ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52075

Staff Reporter / The Hindu /  MUMBAI, July 3, 2011.

Lifeguards bid adieu to cargo ship M.V. Wisdom, which was moved with the help of two tugboats, in Mumbai on Saturday. The ship had been stranded off Juhu beach since June 12 - PTI.

M V Wisdom, the cargo vessel that ran aground at Mumbai's Juhu beach, was floated back on the sea successfully on Saturday after three failed attempts to haul the ship back into the waters.

The 9,000-tonne cargo vessel ran aground near the beach last month while it was being towed to a ship breaking yard in Gujarat's Alang. It broke away from the tug in rough weather drifted to Juhu.

Attempt to refloat

“MV Wisdom was refloated safely today [Saturday] at12.45 p.m. by SMIT international, a Singapore based salvage company, aftertwo powerful tugs. An attempt to refloat this vessel was made in the afternoon by SMIT LUMBA an Emergency Towing Vessel (ETV), chartered by the Ministry of Shipping New Delhi for the present south west monsoon season to deal with such exigencies. The salvage experts on board the towing vessel displayed extraordinary skills in this successful refloatation exercise,” a press release from the Directorate General of Shipping, Mumbai, said.

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MW Wisdom: Efforts to tow away grounded ship off Mumbai suspended!

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Have you read, “Mayhem of the Miserables!” available @ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52075

• June 19, 2011 
• IANS 
• Mumbai / DC.

MV Wisdom, which was being towed to Alang in Gujarat - PTI.

Salvage efforts to tow away cargo ship MV Wisdom, grounded near Juhu beach, were suspended on Sunday for a fortnight due to operational constraints, a Directorate General of Shipping official said.

The vessel went adrift on June 11 from its tug that was towing it from Colombo to Alang in Gujarat, where it was to be broken as scrap. It is now grounded around five km on the south-west of Mumbai's Juhu beach.

"Due to engine trouble in the lead tug there were operational constraints in taking up salvage efforts today (Sunday)," the official said.

They will have to wait for another fortnight for the next spring tide comes in; in the meanwhile, lets hope that no spillage of any kind takes place from the ship that could contaminate the Mumbai Beach Waters!

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Juhu Beach Headache: Final try to haul MV Wisdom back to sea tomorrow

Have you read, “Mayhem of the Miserables!” available @ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52075

PTI / The Hindu. 

People watch cargo ship MV Wisdom at Juhu Beach in Mumbai on Saturday. Efforts are underway to tug away the vessel, which has become quite a spectacle at the beach.

Efforts to salvage cargo vessel MV Wisdom, stuck on the Juhu beach for the past one week, were abandoned for the second day on Saturday after tug boats failed to haul it back into the sea.

Officials said a “last ditch” attempt to tow it back to sea will be made on Sunday. If efforts fail, operations will have to be suspended for a fortnight till the tides are high enough to keep the ship afloat to enable it to be pulled back to sea from shallow waters by tug boats.

Sources said the operation would resume after 2 p.m. on Sunday when high tide is expected.

The ship, which ran aground last Saturday, has to move by over 40 degrees from its current position for the tugs to start pulling it deeper into the sea. However, the 145-metre cargo vessel did not sufficiently respond to the salvage efforts.

“It moved by only 4-5 degrees today during the high tide which is the only time when the operation can be carried out. Tomorrow we have an outside chance and will make a last ditch attempt to salvage the ship,” Director General of Shipping S.B. Agnihotri told PTI.

If they can't do it Tomorrow, they will have to wait for another fortnight for the right level of tide!

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2115835.ece