Sunken oil tanker finally pulled out after 52 hrs

About 52 hours after its capsize, the sunken oil tanker, ‘OT Southern Star 7’, was pulled out from the Shela River in Sundarbans on Thursday. The salvage vessels of Ms Harun & Co had dragged its sunken oil tanker to the shore before two navy ships — Shah Paran and Akter Uddin–and two other rescue vessels sent from Barisal and Narayanganj reached the spot. “Three vessels of Ms Harun & Co, the owner of ‘OT Southern Star 7’, have successfully pulled out the oil taker from the river around 9am today,” Divisional Forest Officer Chowdhury Amir Hossain told UNB. There were eight inter-connected tankers in the ‘OT Southern Star 7’, he said adding that six of the tankers got cracked following the hit by cargo vessel ‘Total’. As the tankers were interconnected, most of the 3.57 lakh litres of oil spilled out of the tanker into the river stretching over around 70 kilometers, Amir Hossain said. He said the two rescue vessels sent from Barisal and Narayanganj reached Joymoni area in the morning. The DFO said they are now talking to different experts as to how they can clean up the spilled oil and they will start work to this end very soon.