A heavily-laden Russian oil tanker ran aground in the Baltic Sea in northern Russia on Sunday, according to media reports.
In the latest incident involving a Russian vessel, the Koala was carrying 130,000 tons of fuel oil, wrote the Russian-language Baza Telegram channel, which has close ties to the Russian security services.
“According to our sources, there were several explosions in the engine room, after which the ship filled with water,” posted the outlet.
The governor of the Leningrad region by the city of St Petersburg, Alexander Drozdenko, later confirmed an accident in the area. The tanker’s engine room was damaged when the engines were started, the official said.
The accident occurred near the port of Ust-Luga, around 150 kilometres west of St Petersburg. All 24 crew members were reportedly able to safely disembark onto the land.
While Baza reported that the stern of the tanker ran aground on a sandbank, Drozdenko said it was able to be moored at a jetty with no loss of oil into the water.
The ship officially flies the flag of Antigua and Barbuda. It is unclear whether it also belongs to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, which the country uses to circumvent international sanctions on its export of oil.
Meanwhile, another tanker reportedly ran aground in the Russian Far East. According to the Interfax news agency, a Chinese vessel encountered difficulties in a storm near the Russian island of Sakhalin.
Authorities were preparing for a possible pump-out of part of the load on board the tanker, which was said to be carrying coal and heavy fuel oil.
In mid-December, two Russian tankers carrying thousands of tons of fuel oil sank in the Black Sea, causing major spillages into the sea and along the shoreline.
According to ecologists, the environmental damage in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from Crimea, will continue for many years.
