A cargo ship, the Rena, is leaking oil into the sea near Tauranga. The ship hit a reef at 2.20am on Wednesday, about 20km outside Tauranga harbour. The 47,000 tonne ship is 236m long. It is 21 years old. It is carrying 1351 containers. The tanks have 1700 cubic metres of heavy fuel oil in them and some of that is spilling out. If the ship sinks, this could cause oil pollution and affect the sea birds, fish, shell fish and the beach as well as other boats. Many cargo ships and small leisure boats use the Tauranga harbour.
Experts sprayed a chemical to soak up the 20 to 30 tonnes of oil which spilled into the sea and more experts from Australia are on their way to help. At the moment, wildlife experts are cleaning up a few birds with oil on their feathers.
The front part of the Rena is stuck on a reef and the back part is in the water. A barge arrived from Auckland to take the oil off the ship and containers will be transferred to smaller boats. However, this is in deep water and it is not easy to take the containers off the ship or to pump out the oil.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is for rain and strong winds. This is a worry.
Listen for numbers and check the text: time of accident, distance outside the harbour, size of ship (weight and length), age, amount of oil in tanks and amount leaked, number of containers.
Vocabulary
a reef is a group of rocks
leak, spill – the oil is coming out of the tanks by accident
a cargo ship carries goods
sink – go to the bottom of the sea
leisure – for sport or fun
wildlife – animals which are not pets
transfer – take from one place and put it in another place
a barge is a boat with a flat bottom
Questions
What do you know about other oil spills at sea? Was it easy to clean up the oil?
Why is the bad weather forecast for tomorrow a worry?