District Administration Gives Deadline to Owners of Doomed Ship to Map Plan of Action
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijworld Media Network—Mangalore (RS/CN)

Mangalore, Jul 22: The district administration has directed the owners of the sunken ship ‘MV Asian Forest’ to prepare a plan of action within 12 hours and to take immediate steps to prevent any oil leakage from the doomed vessel.

In meeting a held at the deputy commissioner’s office on Wednesday July 22, headed by in-charge deputy commissioner (DC) Prabhakara Sharma and M P John, principal officer of mercantile and marine department (Kochi region), directed the owners of the ship to outline such a plan within 12 hours.

John said that 400 metric tonnes of oil will cause immense marine pollution if it starts to leak and priority was to drain all the oil from the ship immediately.

 
Rajeev Bhatnagar, a representative on behalf of Shining Ocean Limited, Hong Kong, the owners of the ill-fated ship, said that they are in contact with the salvage company which has prepared a master plan of the future course of action.

As Bhatnagar did not give a precise time for laying out the plan of action, Sharma urged him to provide these details by the morning of Thursday July 23.

Chandan, a representative from the Smith Salvage Company, Singapore, said that despite the bad weather, the salvaging work will start. 

But his solution of putting oil brooms did satisfy the DC-in-charge as it would take more than a week to install these around the sunken ship.

Mathew Forbes, representative from the P and N Club Insurance Club in Japan, with which the ship was insured, said that the company extends its support.

Padam Shekar Jha, commandant from the coastguard said, “The coastguard is keeping watch around the sunken ship. This area has also been marked to help fishermen and other boats keep away from it.”

Meanwhile, John said that as per the law the crew from the ship cannot return to their homeland till the preliminary investigation ends.   

Yin Sheng Yan, captain of the ship, officials from pollution control department, fisheries department, and the police, were also present at the meeting.