Black Rose wreckage yet to be removed

PARADIP: Wreckage of the ill-fated Mongolian vessel mv Black Rose is yet to be cleared, two years into the mishap.Black Rose, carrying 24,000 tonnes of iron ore, sank 5 km off Paradip on September 10, 2009 soon after it anchored near the port.Due to a technical snag, the vessel tilted and capsized.All crew members except the Ukrainian chief engineer Oleksandr Lyushckenko were rescued.Lyushckenko was later found dead.The State Government and the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) still have no clue as to who will carry out the salvage operation as the State does not have the equipment and expertise.Greens said although it is two years since the vessel capsized, the environmental hazard posed by it seems far from over.Even though oil has been completely drained out from the vessel, its very presence in the waters near the port has sparked fears of environmental damage.The vessel is perpendicular to the shore and breakwater problem may arise because of its positioning.“A expert committee had pointed out that the presence of the vessel may lead to sand erosion at Bhitarkanika and Kharnasi areas, thereby affecting the nesting habits of the Olive Ridley turtles,” said environmentalist Guru Prasad Mohanty, who had filed a PIL in the High Court in 2009.In the PIL, he urged the HC to make the District Collector the ‘receiver of the wreck’ as per the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, and take the responsibility of removing the wreckage.Though the HC asked Collector Narayan Chandra Jena to proceed with the salvage operation and submit a report last year, the work was not carried out in the absence of infrastructure and expertise.Meanwhile, the Merchant Shipping Act has been amended according to which, the port concerned should be the ‘receiver of the wreck’.The Collector then sent a report to the HC and appealed to entrust the responsibility with the PPT as per the amended Act.“No reply has, however, come from the HC yet,” Jena said.