Fuel oil kills all living creatures in Black Sea's Kerch Strait

Fuel oil has killed almost all living creatures on the bottom of the Black Sea in the area of the Kerch Strait where two Russian tankers — Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 — sank. Millions of crabs, sea snails, mollusks and jellyfish died in the black liquid.

Fuel oil sank to the sea floor due to the cold. All living creatures will continue to die as long as oil remains on the bottom of the sea. Volunteers find countless crabs and sea snails in fuel oil every day.

According to experts, it is impossible to count the dead creatures — it goes about hundreds of thousands of sea animals. Carcasses of dead fish will start floating up in spring.

Nature will be able to cope with the aftermath of the man-caused disaster, but it will take years and years for concentrations of fuel oil to become acceptable for the fauna. The underwater world will take at least ten years to recover.

More videos from the scene of the oil spill on Pravda.Ru English Telegram channel.

The aftermath of fuel oil spill following the wreck of Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers in the Kerch Strait between Crimea and the Krasnodar region was categorised as a federal emergency situation, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.

Earlier, a state of emergency was introduced in the Krasnodar Territory due to the ongoing emission of oil products onto the beaches of the resort city of Anapa and the Temryuk District.

The wreck of the tankers that were carrying a total of 9,000 tons of fuel oil occurred on December 15. One person was killed in the wreck, all others were evacuated to safety. It is believed that the ships wrecked and sank either because of dangerous weather conditions or navigation errors.

Details

Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel), marine fuel oil (MFO), furnace oil (FO), gas oil (gasoil), heating oils (such as home heating oil), diesel fuel, and others. The term fuel oil generally includes any liquid fuel that is burned in a furnace or boiler to generate heat (heating oils), or used in an engine to generate power (as motor fuels). However, it does not usually include other liquid oils, such as those with a flash point of approximately 42 °C (108 °F), or oils burned in cotton- or wool-wick burners. In a stricter sense, fuel oil refers only to the heaviest commercial fuels that crude oil can yield, that is, those fuels heavier than gasoline (petrol) and naphtha. Fuel oil consists of long-chain hydrocarbons, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes, and aromatics. Small molecules, such as those in propane, naphtha, gasoline, and kerosene, have relatively low boiling points, and are removed at the start of the fractional distillation process. Heavier petroleum-derived oils like diesel fuel and lubricating oil are much less volatile and distill out more slowly.