Drifting Towards Disas ter!

hile the rest of the State were upset about Cyclone Kyaar playing spoilsport to the traditional Narkasur celebrations, the residents and fishing community of Marivel- Dona Paula were stressed about potential disaster staring in front of them. 

The worst affected were the 400-odd residents living in close proximity to the sea. Some of them were asked by authorities to move to another location where they could be safe from any untoward incident concerning the dangerous ship carrying tonnes of flammable Naphtha, which had drifted from outer anchorage at MPT and found itself grounded barely a few nautical miles away Dona Paula. 

With the State facing a high risk if there was any spillage from the chemical tanker, the authorities, over the last couple of days have been trying their best to salvage the situation.

Even the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who held a series of emergency response meetings, expressed concern over the fact that the vessel can be seen clearly from Raj Bhavan when in fact it was supposed to be many kilometres away from the coastline.

According to the statement issued by the government on Saturday, MT “NU SHI Nalini” is stuck on a rock/softground in the sea near Dona Paula with about 2,000 tonnes of Naphtha, 50 tonnes of Heavy oil and 19 tonnes of diesel. A three-member-expert team consisting of Captain KP Jayakumar, Nautical Advisor, Govt of India, Captain Mohit Behl, Nautical Surveyor, DG Shipping, and Bodh Raj, Engineer and Ship Surveyor,Mercantile Marine Department, Mumbai, along with MPT and State Officials are assessing the situation to plan remedial actions.  

Port assessment and the Coast Guard aerial inspection found no Oil spillage. The Coast Guard has also stationed one oil spill response vessel in the vicinity of the grounded vessel. On Sunday, a team will attempt to rig boom around the vessel to deal with any possible spillage but the sea is still rough.

The ship is still aground at the same position for around the last 30 hours.

To assess the condition of vessel at 3 pm on Saturday, a Navy helicopter flew with a crew of four experts, who went onboard the vessel to assess the condition of the grounded vessel. The team has come back safely around 6 pm.  

The Navy’s helicopter braved the harsh weather and airdropped four members namely Captain Mohit Behl, Nautical Surveyor, DG Shipping, Captain Diwan, Reliable Marine Services, Larson Desa, Chief Engineer, Sastech Associates, and Gautam Dalal, Junior Engineer, Sastech Associates. “The two pilots Commander Dhanush Menon and Lt. Commander Jomy John did a great service to the society in this difficult hour,” read the statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). 

They added that an attempt was made to send a drone to survey the outer contours of the vessel and assess damage, if any. Unfortunately, because of bad weather, the attempt was not successful.

Further, a hydrographic surveyor of the MPT tried to approach the vessel for carrying out a bathymetric survey. “Unfortunately, this too was also not successful due to bad weather,” the statement added. 

On Saturday, two other attempts were been done to assess the surrounding area of the vessel (to be ascertain the extent of grounding) simultaneously by another team by using a boat. But, they added that they were also not very successful due to inclement weather.

After assessment by the airflown team, another meeting along with different stakeholders, including the Navy and Coast Guard, was held for determining the further course of action. The situation is being monitored 24x7.

The data acquired by the airflown team has been forwarded for detailed structural evaluation to the emergency response services of the vessel’s classification society at Mumbai, for planning the further course of action.

In addition, an FIR (01/2019 of PS Harbour Coastal Security) has been filed for negligence and endangering the public safety under several provisions of the IPC.

Police investigation is already underway.

A request has been made by the MPT to the Indian Navy to send a diving team to ascertain the physical status of the vessel from outside and also to ascertain the physio-geographic profile of the surface underlying and around the vessel, on Sunday morning.

Locals react

Back at Marivel- Dona Paula, the entire proceedings were being witnessed by anxious villagers. 

There was a clear sense of resentment among the locals over the failure of government agencies to take precautions and prevent the vessel from drifting like this given the fact that the damage any disaster could cause would be irreparable. 

Speaking about the information they had received from the authorities, Bhramhadev Chauhan, a fisherman from Marivel, said two policemen had visited them on Friday. The cops had explained the gravity of the situation to them and requested the villagers to shift elsewhere if possible. 

“Some villagers to save their lives went to other places and few stayed back as they have no other place to go" he added.

Another youth named Sunil Solanki mentioned that most of his friends and neighbours were awake till late (Friday) night and were very much worried about the Naphtha-carrying-vessel, which was just a half a kilometres away from their houses. I feel this situation has brought tension to our people, who are calm and busy in fishing activities. The government should have acted in time before the vessel could have moved to nearby our beach line" he opined.   

A senior citizen who is also a fishermen named Menino informed that a group of government officials had come to inspect the situation from Marivel beach site. The Collector, Mamlatdar, Navy officials, fire fighting officials, Captain of Ports officials were present at the site as per my knowledge" Menino said.

He also opined that the government should have acted much earlier. 

“Now that the vessel is visible to all of us and is so close that people are getting the feeling that we are looking at a ticking time bomb. We only pray to Almighty that no untoward incident takes place which will have an adverse effect on the entire coastline area" Meninho added.