Oil slick emergency in Galapagos Islands after crane loading a container tips over before crashing and sinking a barge carrying 600 gallons of fuel
- The crane tipped over while lifting an electric generator onto a barge yesterday
- It sparked environmental fears in the Galapagos which has a fragile ecosystem
- Last night Ecuador’s presidential office said the fuel spill was ‘under control’
Ecuador was last night battling to contain an oil spill in the Galapagos Islands after a barge carrying 600 gallons of diesel fuel was sunk by a crane.
The crane tipped over while loading an electric generator and crashed into the barge, which sank off San Cristobal Island on Sunday morning.
One person was injured and the fuel spill sparked environmental fears in the Galapagos, a UNESCO world heritage site which is home to one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet.
Last night Ecuador’s presidential office said the situation was ‘under control’ and said ‘a series of actions have been deployed to mitigate the possible effects’.
Unstable: A crane lifts an electrical generator onto a barge carrying 600 gallons of diesel fuel, moments before the crane tipped over
The loading crane and the electrical generator were also submerged after they fell and destabilised the barge.
The same barge, which is used to transport fuel and construction materials to the Galapagos, had sunk previously in February 2018 due to a weight imbalance in a port on the Guayas River.
The Emergency Operations Committee (COE) took ‘immediate action to reduce the environmental risk’ in the so-called Enchanted Islands, authorities said.
Personnel from the Galapagos National Park (GNP), the official nature reserve authority, and the Ecuadorian Navy set up spill containment barriers and oil absorbent cloths around the fuel patch.
Galapagos minister Norman Wray told reporters that work was under way to recover the diesel.
Collapse: The crane tipped over while loading the generator and crashed into the fuel barge on the Galapagos Islands
Tipped over: The crane, generator and barge all sank off Cristobal Island, sparking fears for the archipelago’s fragile ecosystem
He also said the generator, which was intended to supply energy on Isabela Island, and the barge would be replaced ‘as soon as possible.’
Isabela Island, the largest island, is currently facing energy rationing.
Wray assured reporters that food supply levels in the Galapagos would remain normal despite the loss of the barge.
The Galapagos Islands are best known for their unique wildlife which once helped Charles Darwin develop the theory of evolution.
Darwin visited the Galapagos in 1935 and observed how species similar to those found on the mainland had adapted to the different islands.
The volcanic archipelago, about 600 miles west of the Ecuadorean coast, is home to scores of endemic species that closely depend on one another for survival.