PORT KAVKAZ (Russia), Nov 12: The bodies of three sailors washed ashore on Monday after a ferocious Black Sea storm wrecked five ships, spilling 2,000 tonn-es of oil in the environmentally sensitive waters, officials said.

The bodies, still in life jackets, were found near the island of Tuzla in the northeastern end of the Black Sea, near the maritime border between Russia and Ukraine, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.

Thick fuel oil deposits clogged beaches around Port Kavkaz, a commercial hub some 1,200 kilometres south of Moscow. Oil-soaked seabirds struggled in the polluted water as rescue workers shovelled away the oil.

Regional governor Alexander Tkachyov declared the oil spill “an environmental catastrophe” after holding a crisis meeting in the regional capital of Krasnodar on Monday.

“Thirty thousand birds have died... The damage is so extensive that it’s difficult to estimate. This can be considered an environmental catastrophe,” Tkachyov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

More than 500 soldiers were to be deployed to clean up the spill on Tuesday and Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov was expected to oversee rescue efforts on orders from President Vladimir Putin.

“We’ve collected 10 truckloads of fuel oil today,” said one Russian emergency ministry worker who was clearing a patch of coastline under heavy rain and high winds together with seven other men near Port Kavkaz.

“It’s in small patches everywhere,” he said, taking shelter from the rain.

As environmentalists scrambled to assess the damage, fears grew for 20 missing mariners — five in the area of Port Kavkaz and 15 about 300 kilometres to the west, whose cargo ship sank near Sevastopol in Ukraine.

Russian officials issued a new storm warning for shipping on Monday as dark clouds gathered overhead and winds gathered strength in the region, delaying efforts to limit the oil spill.

After meeting rescue workers in Port Kavkaz, the deputy head of Russia’s environmental monitoring agency said that all measures would be taken to minimise the environmental damage.“Booms and chemical agents will be used to minimise the spill. Soldiers and emergency workers will be deployed on Tuesday to clean up the beaches,” said Oleg Mitvol, who flew to the crisis area on Monday.

Mitvol said the fuel oil spilled in the area totalled “around 2,000 tonnes.” He earlier warned of a “serious environmental accident” and said it could take years to restore the area’s habitats.

At the heart of the damage was the stricken tanker, Volgoneft-139, which broke in two on Sunday in five-metre waves. About 3,000 tonnes of fuel oil remained inside the wreckage of the ship, officials said.

Three cargo ships laden with sulphur sank near the port on Sunday, though officials said the containers were sealed and would therefore not present an environmental risk. The oil spill occurred in the Kerch Strait, an environmentally sensitive waterway connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov that is an important migration route for bids and also home to the Black Sea porpoise.

“I’m very worried about the environment. A lot of tourists come here, we’ve got good fish and the birds are going to die,” said a Port Kavkaz official, who declined to be named.

“I’ve been working in ports in this area since 1995 and this is the first time I’ve seen something on this scale. The ships weren’t meant for these kinds of waves. They shouldn’t have gone out.” “We haven’t seen the full scale of this, the weather has to clear,” he said.

During the storm, rescue services plucked 36 crew members from stricken vessels and 40 vessels were evacuated from Port Kavkaz. Two more cargo ships ran aground near Kabardinka, a town on Russia’s Black Sea coast further south.

The oil spill from the Volgoneft-139 was far smaller than that caused in November 2002 when the Liberian oil tanker Prestige sank off Spain, spewing 64,000 tonnes of fuel oil into the water and fouling the Atlantic coastline.

However, environmentalists said that the real impact of pollution varies from case to case and does not necessarily depend on how much fuel was spilled, with factors such as the speed of rescue efforts also playing a crucial role.

The Volgoneft-139 was carrying fuel oil from the southern Russian city of Samara on the Volga River to an oil terminal in Ukraine, following a busy commercial route for Russia-Ukraine commerce.

The Black Sea is bordered by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, with one narrow outlet through the Bosphorus Strait into Turkey’s Marmara Sea and on into the Mediterranean.—AFP