{"id":11327,"date":"2024-12-25T11:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T11:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/ordinary-people-with-shovels-volunteers-cleaning-black-sea-oil-spill-ask-putin-for-help\/"},"modified":"2024-12-25T11:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T11:37:45","slug":"ordinary-people-with-shovels-volunteers-cleaning-black-sea-oil-spill-ask-putin-for-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/ordinary-people-with-shovels-volunteers-cleaning-black-sea-oil-spill-ask-putin-for-help\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ordinary people with shovels\u2019: Volunteers cleaning Black Sea oil spill ask Putin for help"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteers helping to clean up the oil spill on Russia\u2019s Black Sea coast are appealing to Russian President Vladimir Putin for more assistance, as they grapple with environmental havoc across more than 35 miles of coastline. <\/p>\n

Two Russian tankers carrying thousands of tons of fuel were badly damaged in stormy weather near the Black Sea earlier this month, leading to an oil spill, according to Russian state media. The tankers were carrying more than 9,000 tons of oil, according to TASS, much of which spilled into the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and annexed Crimea. <\/p>\n

Putin last week labelled the spill an \u201cenvironmental disaster.\u201d <\/p>\n

At least 3,700 tons of heavy oil were spilled, though the actual volume may be higher, according to Greenpeace Ukraine. Video from the scene showed blackened waves washing the heavy fuel oil known as mazut onto rocky shores. In one video, a bird \u2013 its wings thick with oil \u2013 could be seen squawking in distress as it was pummeled by waves, unable to lift its wings and fly away. <\/p>\n

In a video message addressed to the Russian president and prime minister on Tuesday, volunteers said that local authorities in Russia\u2019s Krasnodar region did not have the means to clean up the oil spill. <\/p>\n

\u201cLocal authorities are not coping, they do not have the resources for this. The only resource is ordinary people with shovels, such a catastrophe cannot be defeated with shovels!\u201d one volunteer said in the video, as they requested federal resources and specialists to be sent to the area. They also appealed for foreign specialists to be sent, warning that the scale of the pollution will have an international impact. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was recently announced that 5,000 volunteers and rescuers are working to eliminate the consequences. We believe that in such a vast disaster area, even 50,000 people with shovels are not able to solve the problem and save the situation,\u201d the volunteer added. <\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n
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Volunteers work to clear spilled oil on the Russian coastline in the Kerch Strait, near the Black Sea resort of Anapa on December 21.<\/span> <\/div>
Sergey Pivovarov\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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A volunteer cleans a bird in the Russian village of Vityazevo on December 20, following the oil spill.<\/span> <\/div>
Sergey Pivovarov\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Thursday, Putin suggested the captains of the vessels were to blame for the incident. \u201cWhy am I saying that this is a big disaster and a catastrophe? Because almost 40% of the fuel has leaked,\u201d he said, adding that efforts to recover the vessels were hampered by the ongoing storm. <\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Investigative Committee will open a criminal case into the incident, Russian state media TASS reported. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteers helping to clean up the oil spill on Russia\u2019s Black Sea coast are appealing to Russian President Vladimir Putin for more assistance, as they grapple with environmental havoc across more than 35 miles of coastline. Two Russian tankers carrying thousands of tons of fuel were badly damaged in stormy weather near the Black Sea <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}