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| World Home » Current Affairs » | Thu. Aug 28, 2008 |
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Britons Harvest Ship’s Bounty, People taking away articles MIL/NYT, Jan 23, 2007. Allen Cowell LONDON, January 22, 2007 - Hundreds of people foraged among containers washed from a stricken cargo vessel on the southern English coast on Monday, ignoring health warnings and threats of prosecution and hauling off booty that included BMW motorcycles, shoes, diapers, beauty cream and carpets. The scavengers descended on beaches at Branscombe, Devon, after rescue tugs towed the 62,000-ton cargo vessel, the Napoli, to a sandbar just offshore to prevent it from breaking up at sea and spilling thousands of tons of oil and cargo including hazardous chemicals. Television images showed people inside containers or carrying away items like gearboxes, steering wheels and Bibles. Local people were seen using gurneys to carry away their hauls. The police said 15 new BMW motorcycles were taken, one of them by people using a small tractor as they raced against the tides to grab what they could. The informal salvage recalled long-past days when the southern coast was a haunt of smugglers bringing ashore contraband, usually at night. But the authorities took a stern view, warning that people taking away goods from containers washed up on the shore were committing a criminal offense. “It’s not finders, keepers,” said Jim Nye, a senior police officer. As many as 40 of the Napoli’s 2,500 containers fell into shallow waters and were left high and dry when the tide receded. “We are concerned about the mass hysteria being shown by people ripping everything they can out of containers,” Mark Clark, an official with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, told the Press Association news agency. “You do not know what is in the containers. We just want people to understand some of the risks they are running.” The ship, en route from Antwerp, Belgium, to Durban, South Africa, was damaged Thursday in a severe storm and was towed toward the coast over the weekend. Maritime authorities said about 100 containers fell into the sea, at least three of them laden with battery acid, ethanol and other hazardous materials such as pesticides. The vessel also lost about 200 tons of oil, which has formed a five-mile slick, harming about 600 seabirds. About 80 birds have been rescued. Authorities plan to heat and then pump 3,500 tons of oil still aboard the Napoli into waiting vessels and use floating cranes to lift the containers from the ship. The company said the ship was stable. While its hull was earlier reported to have been fissured, the Napoli’s managers said the main fuel tanks were intact. Among the containers still on board, about 165 carrying chemicals will be the first to be removed, Zodiac said. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/europe/23ship.html
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