For many the environmental disaster Canary Islands is inevitable after the sinking of the fishing boat Russian Oleg Naydenov, which occurred late Tuesday evening after being taken off shore by the port authorities. Rescuers saved the crew, already in the eye of the storm after Senegal reported illegal fishing, but they were unable to do anything to prevent thefire, which broke out on board a few km from the tourist center of Maspalomas (Gran Canaria), completely destroyed the boat.
The Oleg Naydenov, 120 meters long and loaded with fuel, is sunk until you reach i 2400 meters of depth and the contents of the tanks poured into the sea. At the time of the fire, which occurred due to causes under investigation, the vessel had tanks full of diesel, as it was preparing to set sail from the port of Las Palmas. By order of the harbor master's office it had been removed from the coast, fearing that the fire could cause damage to the port infrastructure and given that the huge amount of water used to extinguish the flames had caused it to run aground.
After put out the fire on the high seas, with the help of a maritime rescue aircraft, the trawler was towed back to port, but sank this morning just 15 miles off the Canary coast. Ana Pastor, Minister of Development and the Environment, has already visited the scene while biologists and ecologists are sounding the alarm. Greenpeace argues that the spot chosen to let the Oleg Naydenov sink is an area of the highest ecological value, and the biologist Pascal Calabuig confirmed everything: "It is a disaster that will affect all the fauna of the area, especially the puffins (birds that fish with their long beak), which will die immediately". Meanwhile, some men from the navy and the Guardia Civil have released shocking images of one sea turtle completely covered in naphtha.
