A cargo ship that listed heavily and then ran aground on the western coast of South Africa earlier this month has broken apart and leaked a still undetermined volume of oil while salvage operations were ongoing, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) has confirmed.
The Panama-registered, 124-metre general cargo vessel Ultra Galaxy broke into four sections due to bad weather in the area where it is presently beached, SAMSA said in a statement released on Sunday, July 28. The agency assured that work is being undertaken to contain the spill within the immediate area, and that cleanup operations will continue.
A full assessment of the potential environmental damage is being conducted with the aid of aerial and surface surveys.
SAMSA said that, at one point, the wreck was being struck by 6.8-metre-high swells every 15 seconds, and the force of the constant battering caused the ship's accommodation section to break off from the rest of the hull. This then led to a number of larger cracks on the hull forward of the accommodation.
SAMSA assured that several barrels of lube oil and around eight tonnes of MGO have been removed from the ship's fuel tanks. The agency nonetheless said that an oil spill contingency plan has been initiated and over a hundred volunteers from nearby areas have been recruited to assist in the cleanup effort.
Ultra Galaxy was underway in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Town when it developed a heavy list at around 03:00 local time on July 8. The crew later abandoned ship and were picked up out of the water by responding good Samaritan vessels.
The abandoned vessel continued to drift until it came to rest just off a remote coastal area known as Brand se Baai a few days later.
Meanwhile, the ship's entire crew of 18 Filipino nationals have since been repatriated.
