First Body Identified from Iran Oil Tanker Incident Off Chinese Shores
Two ships collided on Saturday night off the eastern coast of China, with the damaged tanker belonging to Iran and chartered by a South Korean company.
According to FCN news agency: A South Korean Coast Guard official said that an Iranian oil tanker, which collided with a Chinese cargo ship in the East China Sea on Sunday, was still burning on Monday morning.
Haghshenas, deputy maritime officer of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, announced minutes ago: The body found in Chinese waters definitely belongs to one of the Iranian crew members of this oil tanker. Due to the long distance of the body discovery at 160 miles from Shanghai port to the shore, it has not yet reached this city and is being transported to Shanghai port.
Emphasizing that the most important issue for the Ports and Maritime Organization is obtaining information about the safety of the Iranian ship’s crew, he said: This ship entered Assaluyeh port on December 14 and departed from this port on December 25 bound for South Korea. Its manufacturing year is 2008 and it complied with international safety standards, which shows that this oil tanker had no safety or technical problems.
The Sanchi tanker, flying a Panama flag, was carrying 136,000 tons of Iranian condensate to South Korea. This figure is equivalent to approximately one million barrels of condensate valued at approximately 60 million dollars.
The Chinese cargo ship carrying American grain suffered minor damage and all 21 of its crew members, who are all Chinese nationals, have been rescued.
The extent of environmental damage and the volume of oil spilled into the sea are still unknown, but given the tonnage of oil that this tanker was carrying, this will likely be the worst pollution since 1991. In that year, 260,000 tons of oil spilled into the sea near the coast of Angola.
We hope that this incident and its heavy human and financial losses will not be used as a means of distraction and redirecting the concerns and grievances of the affected Iranian society regarding these recent issues and their legitimate protests. This is because the Islamic Republic’s track record in this regard is very clear and brilliant, and these individuals readily resort to such actions to change their opposing atmosphere and also to cover up their crimes.
