Sunk tanker leaves big oil spill off China

Chinese ships yesterday scrambled to clean up a massive oil spill after an Iranian tanker sank off China, raising fears of devastating damage to marine life.

The Sanchi, carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil from Iran, went under on Sunday after a new and massive fire erupted, sending a cloud of black smoke as high as one kilometre (3,280 feet) above the East China Sea.

The bodies of only three of the 32 crew members have been found since the vessel collided with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, on January 6, sparking a fire that Chinese rescue ships struggled to extinguish.

Iranian officials said there was no hope of finding survivors among the crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis, prompting grief and anger among families of the sailors in Tehran.

The search and rescue effort was cancelled and a clean-up began after a fire on the sea surface was finally extinguished yesterday, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Two ships sprayed chemical agents aimed at dissolving the oil, CCTV said. The spill was 11.5 miles long and up to 4.6 miles wide and located east of the submerged ship, it added. This would amount to an area of some 50 square miles (129 square kilometres).

"This (clean-up) work is one of our focuses. It is also a priority area of our efforts. No one wants to see a large-scale secondary disaster," said foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang, adding that the cause of the accident was under investigation.

Alaska-based oil spill consultant Richard Steiner called the accident "the single largest environmental release of petroleum condensate in history".