A container ship docked in Antwerp, where an oil spill has caused a near-shutdown of maritime traffic – Copyright AFP NICOLAS TUCAT<\/p>\n
Maude BRULARD<\/p>\n
Shipping was at a near-standstill in Belgium\u2019s port of Antwerp on Friday following an overnight oil spill, Europe\u2019s second-biggest port said as it raced to contain the risks of pollution and economic damage.<\/p>\n
A port statement said the spill occurred during a \u201cbunkering operation\u201d \u2014 the process of filling a ship with fuel \u2014 in the Deurganck Dock, which is used by some of the largest vessels in the world to load and unload goods in Antwerp.<\/p>\n
A spokesman told AFP that as of midday Friday the port\u2019s North Sea access route via the Scheldt river estuary was \u201ctotally blocked\u201d, with Belgian media reporting that several dozen container and cargo ships heading in and out had been affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that the port will be fully operational in 24 hours,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The port statement said the source of the spill had been stopped and the \u201cdirectly involved seagoing vessels have been contained for active clean-up operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, it said the pollution had spread towards the Scheldt river overnight.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmergency services are fully mobilised and are focusing on containment and clean-up operations,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
It was not yet clear how much oil had been spilled into the water.<\/p>\n
The tidal Scheldt river estuary is the main maritime access route to Antwerp port, along with several narrower canals primarily used for inland navigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An AFP team on site saw around 15 stationary ships near the port entrance, though it was not possible to confirm if they were being kept out by the traffic shutdown.<\/p>\n
Local media reported that the spill occurred during the\u00a0refuelling of the container ship MSC Denmark VI.<\/p>\n
The ship\u2019s operator, MSC, confirmed the vessel was involved in the incident but declined to provide additional information.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur priority is safety,\u201d a spokeswoman for the company\u2019s Belgian office told AFP, adding that they were focused on safeguarding \u201cthe crew, the terminal, the nature\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013 Key gateway \u2013<\/p>\n
Citing a \u201crisk of impact on nearby nature areas\u201d, the port said it was \u201cdoing everything possible to minimise both operational and ecological damage\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe regret the impact of this incident on our port and the vulnerable nature areas along the Scheldt,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The Pieter Coecke, a Belgian-flagged pollution control vessel, was operating in the area of the spill Friday, according to the Marine Traffic website.<\/p>\n
Second only to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the Antwerp port on Belgium\u2019s north coast is a key gateway for goods coming into Europe from the United States, China and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Larger than 22,000 football fields, it handles transit each year of around 267 million tonnes of goods and is used by around 20,000 seagoing vessels and 50,000 inland vessels, according to its website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A container ship docked in Antwerp, where an oil spill has caused a near-shutdown of maritime traffic –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,7,319,2637,1410,3036,979],"class_list":["post-10957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-belgium","tag-environment","tag-oil","tag-pollution","tag-port","tag-shipping"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116380096606711235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}