Port Louis
The prime minister of Mauritius said Tuesday two sailors were dead and two others missing after a tugboat assisting in a major oil spill clean-up off the Indian Ocean island collided with a barge.
A search was under way for the missing crew after the accident late Monday as the boats returned from where a tanker crashed into a reef in late July, leaking more than 1,000 tonnes of oil into the island’s picturesque waters.
“It is tragic that we lost two of the tugboat crew, while two others are still missing,” Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said after visiting rescued sailors in hospital.
“We are doing everything we can to locate them, with all our means and with the help of fishermen in the area. On behalf of the government, I extend my sympathies to the family.”
The spill was declared an ecological disaster for the Indian Ocean archipelago, and a massive clean-up operation was launched to scrub the pristine coastline and azure seas of thick sludge.—AFP
