The Gironde and Charente-Maritime have placed their services, Thursday March 14, in “pre-alert phase”. The two departments anticipate the possible pollution of the coasts by the oil slick escaping from the Great America which sank off La Rochelle after a fire broke out on board the Italian ship on the night of Sunday 10 to Monday 11 March. But to this pollution is added another threat: the ship plunged its imposing load into the ocean. Tons of goods and materials that are more or less harmful to the environment.
>> Follow the operations live after the sinking of the “Grande America”
In order to assess the scale of the disaster, the Robin des Bois environmental association would like to obtain from the shipowner Grimaldi the complete list of goods and hazardous materials on board the ship, reports France 3 Bretagne. “Precise information is essential to judge the dangerousness of the waste which will gradually escape from the wreck”, pleaded his spokesperson Jacky Bonnemains. While waiting for the ocean to reject this load on the beaches (or keep at the bottom of the water), franceinfo lists what the ship was carrying.
Tons of fuel
Departed on March 9 from the port of Hamburg, Germany, towards Casablanca, Morocco, the Great America carried 2,200 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, which was used as fuel for navigation. On franceinfo, the Minister of the Environment, François de Rugy specified that it was “most likely the propulsion fuel that powered the engines of this ship.”
It is heavy fuel oil so it is a product which does not evaporate, which tends to form these viscous slicks on the surface of the sea, which can also turn into oil pellets which can therefore arrive on the coasts. .
Francois de Rugy
on franceinfo
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“There is an oil slick which currently extends for more than 10 km”, he said on BFMTV. “Reconnaissance planes took off from Brittany to see if this slick continues to be fed by the tanks of the ship, which sank and which is 4,500 m deep.”
Hundreds of containers
At a press conference, thehe maritime prefect of the Atlantic, Jean-Louis Lozier, declared that the Great America transported 365 containers. “About forty containers fell into the sea before the sinking, he noted. Most of them were badly damaged by the fire and presumably sank. ”
In a statement sent Thursday, the company Grimaldi Lines, which operated the ship, indicated that they mostly contained generic products, loaded in Antwerp and Hamburg with destination Casablanca (Morocco), Dakar (Senegal), Conakry (Guinea), the Brazilian ports of Suape, Vitoria, Rio de Janeiro, Santos and Paranagua, as well as Zarate (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay).
According to the specialized site Mer et Marine, “Ardent, the rescue company commissioned by Grimaldi, sent two tugs to the area. They should probably try to recover the drifting boxes.” Cleaning that loses its effectiveness in the case of broken containers.
Dozens of tons of dangerous products
After receiving “a complete inventory”, the maritime prefect revealed that 45 of his containers were filled with hazardous materials – around 100 tonnes of hydrochloric acid and around 70 tonnes of sulfuric acid. “As for the chemicals, most are thought to have burned down as the fire lasted a very long time, tended to grow.”, tried to reassure François de Rugy. Grimaldi Lines also specified that 34 of these containers were stored on the upper deck, while the rest were inside the ship.
Thousands of vehicles
the Great America is a hybrid ship between a ro-ro and a container ship. It was therefore transporting, in addition to containers, some 2,210 vehicles in its garage decks, according to the count transmitted by Grimaldi Lines. “It is an automobile junkyard at the bottom of the sea representing hundreds of tonnes of toxic materials in an area very rich in fish, plankton and marine mammals”, rebelled Jacky Bonnemains, spokesperson for the Robin des Bois association, to AFP. According to France Bleu Loire Océan, un Nantes astrophotographer, Olivier Sauzereau, was thus forced to postpone an educational trip to South America. And for good reason: his converted 4×4, aboard the ship, now lies more than 4,000 m deep.
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