An emergency operation is under way to clean up an oil spill from a sunken tanker that has blackened popular beaches and bays in Athens’ Argo-Saronic gulf.



What had been thought a containable spill is being described by officials as an ecological disaster after thick tar and oil pollution drifted toward residential coastal areas.

By Thursday, four days after the 45-year-old Agia Zoni II sank off Salamína island, mayors in suburbs south of the capital were forced to close beaches, citing public health risks.

“This is a major environmental disaster,” said the mayor of Salamína, Isidora Nannou-Papathanassiou. “Clearly the danger [of pollution] was not properly gauged, the currents have moved the spill.”

The vessel sank while at anchor in the early hours of Sunday. It was carrying 2,500 tonnes of fuel oil and marine gas when it went down in mild weather. It has emerged that only two of its 11-strong crew – the captain and chief engineer – were on board when it began to take on water. Both men have since been charged with negligence but freed on bail.

The company operating the small, Greek-flagged vessel insisted it was seaworthy.

Merchant marine officials said initial emphasis had been placed on sealing the vessel’s cargo holds to stop further leakage. The merchant marine minister, Panagiotis Kouroumblis, who has brought in help from abroad including an anti-pollution truck to collect the oil, ruled out further seepage on Tuesday, saying the ship’s hull had been secured.

Workers clean a beach in the Athens suburb of Palaio Faliro. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/AP

Late on Wednesday, however, the ministry’s general secretary, Dionysis Kalamatianos, raised the possibility that oil was still leaking from the vessel, telling Skai TV that efforts to seal it were “almost complete”.

The contradictory statements sparked accusations that authorities had not only underestimated the scale of the spill, but also lost valuable time in tackling it.

The slick extends for miles, and some officials said the cleanup could last four months – much longer than the 20 days Kouroumblis estimated. In the Athens suburb of Glyfada, where floating dams have been set up and chemicals used to dissolve the spillage, the mayor, Giorgos Papanikolaou, said 28 tonnes of fuel had been removed from one beach alone.

Images of of dead and oil-coated turtles and birds underscored the economic and environmental impact, and experts estimated it could take years before the affected area fully recovered.

On Salamína, which has been hardest hit by the disaster, coastal businesses have been forced to shut down.

Dimitris Karavellas, the head of WWF Greece, said there were “a lot of open questions” about how the accident occurred. “What is clear is that this is no minor incident,” he told the Guardian. “It is an environmental crime, the worst spillage in years and authorities are clearly totally unprepared. It is very important that a precedent is set, that those responsible are held accountable, that they are made to pay for the damage and it is properly assessed.”



Environmental groups said the disaster also highlighted the dangers underlying Greece’s quest to exploit oil and natural gas deposits. “If authorities can’t manage a relatively ‘controlled’ incident outside the country’s largest port, it’s hard to imagine how a much bigger incident on an oil platform would be handled,” said Karavellas. “As we have always said, Greece’s [oil and gas] future is not the safest way to go.”