Jairam Ramesh visits oil spill site

MUMBAI - A week after the ship collision, Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh Saturday visited the site of the oil spill off Mumbai coast to take stock of the ongoing salvage operations.

Accompanied by Maharashtra Environment Minister Suresh Shetty, Ramesh expressed his concern over the extensive damage to the environment and the coastal areas of Mumbai, Raigad and Thane districts.

Ramesh is to hold a review meeting on the Mumbai oil slick and address mediapersons later.

The minister said that the mangroves along the coast have been damaged extensively dur to the spill and only some of them will be able to regenerate.

Shetty said that other mangroves in the 25 km stretch will be replanted after they receive the damage assessment report next week.

In the meantime, several workers of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) along with the Coast Guard workers undertook clean-up operations at the site of the oil spill Saturday morning.

Almost a week after the two ships collided off the Mumbai coast, a convoy of 10 ships was piloted out of the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) Friday, a day after partial operations were restored on both the ports.

The oil spilled from the sunken containers that fell from the Panamanian cargo carrier, MSC Chitra after its collision with a St. Kitts-flagged vessel, MV Khalijia-III, just outside the Mumbai harbour last Saturday.