A decaying oil tanker threatens a massive spill. The international community must seize the chance to stop it
It is both disgraceful and absurd that the United Nations should be forced to rattle a tin to prevent a major environmental and humanitarian catastrophe that, without intervention, is all but inevitable. The UN needs just $20m more – chump change, in terms of international funding – to begin unloading more than a million barrels of oil from a fast-decaying tanker moored off the coast of Yemen, in the fragile ecosystem of the Red Sea. Yet it has been forced to take the rare step of turning to the public to crowdfund cash, after governments failed to stump enough up. In the week of the UN’s Oceans conference, it is still waiting to amass sufficient funds.
The FSO Safer holds more than four times the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in 1989. When the war in Yemen broke out in 2014, normal maintenance halted on the ageing ship. It is now beyond repair, kept afloat largely through the heroic efforts of a seven-strong crew; the captain says it is a miracle that disaster has not struck already. The former chief executive of the company that owns the ship has described it as a “bomb”. A stray cigarette butt, a bullet or even static electricity could spark a huge explosion. Two years ago, a burst pipe almost led to it sinking.
