02/09/2025
On the night of February 9, the tanker Koala began to sink near the seaport of Ust-Luga, in the Leningrad Region of the Russian Federation. This is the second incident in Russian territorial waters in a day – the Chinese ship An Yang 2 ran aground off the coast of Sakhalin, suffering a hole.
The ship sails under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, and was carrying 132,000 tons of fuel oil . This was reported by the Telegram channels Baza and Nexta Live .
At 2 a.m., the tanker was loaded with fuel oil, but in the morning, before departure, three powerful explosions were heard in the engine room , after which the tanker began to run aground. The cargo compartment was not damaged.
The crew managed to get ashore and were evacuated, so there were no injuries. At the time of the accident, there were 24 crew members on board:
- 4 Russians;
- 8 citizens of Georgia;
- 12 sailors from Indonesia.
According to emergency services, no oil products leaked into the water. However, emergency services personnel installed boom fences around the tanker to prevent possible pollution.
A source from the Cheka-OGPU reported that the incident with the tanker caused real panic in the port of Ust-Luga. At about five in the morning, emergency services received a signal about an explosion, and an “external impact” on the tanker was reported. An urgent evacuation was announced in the port itself, and employees wrote to each other in correspondence about both the UAV attack and the operation of water drones.
The governor of the Leningrad region of the Russian Federation, Alexander Drozdenko, said that the cause of the accident was a “man-made incident during engine start-up,” According to him, the tanker is moored at the pier, and there is no threat of an environmental disaster.
“This morning in the port of Ust-Luga, a man-made incident occurred on the tanker Koala during engine start-up, resulting in damage to the engine room. The tanker is moored at the pier. There is no threat of oil spillage. The crew has been evacuated, there are no injuries,” said Drozdenko.
As OBOZ.UA reported, the day before yesterday, the Chinese cargo ship An Yang 2 ran aground near the Russian port of Nevelsk. It was carrying 1,000 tons of coal, 700 tons of fuel oil, and 100 tons of diesel fuel. The Russians assured that no fuel leak was recorded.
Europe would be better off to block the port of St. Petersburg. The ruskie rust buckets are environmental disasters waiting to happen. The chink boats are also untrustworthy. Both nations are also engaged in destroying the undersea infrastructure in the Baltic, thus this is another good reason to block them.
But, that is never going to happen.