Decaying oil tanker may soon cause one of the largest oil spills ever | DW News

From above it's a pin prick in the waters off Yemen. But experts say this decaying oil tanker is like a floating bomb that could go off at any moment. Fears over the fate of the stranded supertanker are growing for more than five years. Experts warn the tanker may soon break apart, causing one of the largest oil spills in living memory, with devastating impacts on the environmment and the economy. But the vessel is being used as a bargaining chip in Yemen's ongoing war.

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[amsterdammancom]

The inability to act in the face of crisis will be written on the gravestone of our civilization...

[konstantincvetanovic]

Red sea is an enormously biodiverse area what a disater would it be....

[mmoarchives]

there's one way to resolve this, hijack it, off load the ship, then sink it

[maplelief_dreaming]

Well with our human track record, nothing will be done until too late. Hope I am wrong.

[kermitdafrog]

Bet nothing will be done before it does actually spill.. Governments having so much money, resources, technology and tools.

[turbine]

Hunt Oil Co. were the users of this offshore Loading barge. It was in poor condition when I left Yemen 2008 with very little maintenance as it was very old.

[craigh]

just send about 6 western naval ships as backup then send the specialists in to sort it coz they wont fire on a fleet that size over a clean up op

[Aranimda]

Probably the best solution: The cargo is still worth quite some money. Find a party willing to buy the ship, offload the cargo to a new tanker and send the empty tanker to a scrapper. You can probably pay for all of that with the profits of all the oil inside.

Then the current owner gets decent money, the buyer of the ship can make a good profit and no disaster will happen.

[kcompanion]

I can hear the tanker singing
What are you waiting for?
Extract me like you do
Extract extract
Extract me like you do

[goforit]

Very concerning matter for all of us ..

[HariKrishnan-rlnm]

Our world runs in such a way that nobody will respond unless the oil spill happens. Thats the only way someone can take credit of solving it then 😂

[benb]

1 million barrels and no body is going there to take the oil ?

[georgelee]

Send a tanker to transfer the oil somewhere else. Let the vessel remain.

[arkalec]

If they can drill miles under the sea why can't they tap into it.

[jacob]

2021 she still floating but not for long

[ahmadmaseeh]

There are also 5 million children in need of medical assistance and food.

[jorisvaganee]

I'm sorry for the younger generation who will have to clean up the mess. They have no choice.

[SMunro]

So how has a pirate band not brought it a sea floor pipeline and stolen the oil?

[paulnevins]

The ship is not "stranded". It is "on station" as a floating Storage facility. Oil brought in from fields on shore then pumped to the vessel for export. It was an income generating operation for the country until the civil war.

[Yatukih_]

We can still avert this if we all act together.