Efforts will begin on Saturday in Solomon Islands to refloat a wrecked ship at the centre of an environmental disaster.
Since early February, bulk carrier, Solomon Trader, has been wedged on a reef off Rennel Island, where it spilled an estimated 100 tonnes of oil.
The spill happened near a protected marine area and poisoned local water supplies and fishing grounds, sparking an international outcry.
More than 3 months on, the vessel is due to be refloated and towed from the reef.
Loti Yates, the director of the Solomon Islands Disaster Management Office, told Mackenzie Smith it's expected to take around 3 days.
MV Solomon Trader oil spill on Rennell Island, Solomon Islands.
Photo: The Australian High Commission Solomon Islands
Transcript
LOTI YATES: It is a huge operation. The Solomon trader is a bulk carrier that was used to transport bauxite from Rennell to markets overseas. It was during the process of having the loading that it sort of got pushed ashore by the strong winds that eventually formed to tropical Cyclone Homa in February. And so the insurance company's deployed Resolve Marine Salvagers. So it is a very, very difficult operation.
MACKENZIE SMITH: Are you able to tell me a bit about the cleanup efforts? How are they progressing in terms of the the oil removal?
LY: All the oil has now been put into a ... barge, ready to be transported out. Where it is going, I'm not sure yet at this stage, but that's for the insurance company and the salvage company to confirm. Yeah, and they actually are still doing cleaning onshore and along the beaches there. And also along the seafront, the cleanup is still going on. And I think it will go on for a while yet.
MS: So there's still some cleanup efforts along along the shore front in the beach but all the oil in the ocean has been extracted into these tanks?
LY: The oil that was still in the in the vessel. The ones that we were able to capture already also captured but I'm pretty sure that there is a big amount of oil that has also gone missing based on records.
MS: Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean by missing?
LY: If you take the amount of this on the Captain's log as the amount of fuel that were carried on on the vessel, and then you take the amount that has been extracted from the boat and are now captured in the ... barges, the difference is the missing amount.
MS: How much is that amount?
LY: I don't have any figures yet but we know that there may be some amount of fuel that has gone missing. Maybe they evaporated, maybe they just sailed away or sunk into the bottom of the ocean. Not sure yet.
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