Massive East China Sea Oil Spill Triples in Size

The oil spill from a sunken Iranian tanker in the East China Sea appears to be growing in size.

Oil slicks from the spill now cover a surface area of over 300 square kilometers, China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced Sunday. Satellite data revealed that oil from three separate slicks have spread to cover 332 square kilometers, the largest of which spans 328 square kilometers.  

Last week, the SOA announced that the slicks covered 100 square kilometers, which indicates that the slicks have since tripled in size. On Sunday, three coast guard vessels were on the scene assessing the spill, the SOA said. 

Some experts earlier feared the 'unprecedented' spill could be the worst since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Environmental experts also expressed concerns that condensate from the tanker could destroy the surrounding ecosystem. Toxic and highly flammable, condensate is only partially soluble in water and can devastate marine life.

The Zhoushan fishing grounds in the East China Sea, where the collision occurred, supply roughly 40 percent of the country's fish harvests. According to Greenpeace, the area is also right in the migratory path of the humpback whale.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about a major condensate spill since we’ve never seen one,” Richard Steiner, an Alaska-based consultant involved in the Exxon Valdez cleanup, told Buzzfeed News.

The spill was caused after the Sanchi, a Panama-registered Iranian oil tanker, collided with a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter on the evening of January 6 roughly 160 nautical miles (296 kilometers) east of the Yangtze River estuary in Shanghai. The tanker was carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil at the time of the collision.

On January 14, eight days after the collision, the vessel suddenly ignited before completely capsizing, bringing its condensate and ship fuel to the sea floor (likely with its fuel tanks intact). The tanker had been burning off the coast of China for over a week and spilling fuel in the surrounding waters. 

Three bodies were recovered from the Sanchi, while another 29 missing crew members were presumed dead. The Sanchi's 32-member crew included 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis.

[Images via Shine, China Daily]