Clumps of heavy oil from the Liberia-flagged Rena have washed up on pristine beaches on New Zealand’s North Island, and environmental officials said 53 birds were found dead and 17 were getting emergency treatment to remove oil from their feathers.
“This event has come to a scale where it is New Zealand’s most significant environmental maritime disaster,” Environment Minister Nick Smith said at Tauranga, adding that the clean-up would take weeks.
The ship has been foundering since it ran aground Oct. 5 on the Astrolabe Reef, about 22 km from Tauranga Harbor, and the government has demanded to know why the ship crashed into the well-charted reef in calm weather. The ship owner has given no reason for the grounding, but says it is cooperating with authorities.
Rough weather in recent days has kept salvage crews away.
Late Monday, the 236-meter ship shifted significantly, spilling hundreds of tons of oil from an unidentified rupture in the hull, said Nick Bohm, a spokesman for Maritime New Zealand which is managing the emergency response.
Up to 350 tons of heavy fuel oil spilled from the hull Tuesday, about five times worse than during the first days of the spill.
Bohm said a salvage crew had to be removed from the ship late Tuesday morning because ocean swells of 2-to-3 meters made conditions too dangerous.
Maritime New Zealand said in a statement that a beach clean up began early Tuesday and that more teams would be deployed on Wednesday when oil is expected to reach the shore in greater quantities.
Rescue teams were also searching the shore for more wildlife affected by the oil.
Marine crews began an operation Sunday to extract up to 1,900 tons (1,700 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil from the stricken ship — the equivalent of about 10,700 barrels. But they had to halt the pumping Monday after managing to remove just 11 tons (10 metric tons).
In a statement, the owners of the ship, Greece-based Costamare Inc., said they were “cooperating fully with local authorities” and were making every effort to “control and minimize the environmental consequences of this incident.” The company did not offer any explanation for the grounding.
The Rena was built in 1990 and was carrying 1,351 containers of goods when it ran aground, according to the owners.
In addition to the oil, authorities are also concerned about some potentially dangerous goods aboard, including four containers of ferrosilicon. Authorities said removing those goods was a priority.
