Experts say "incompetence" was the likely cause of the collision between a cargo ship and an oil tanker in the North Sea on Monday. The U.K. government says it's looking into how to clean up the mess as investigations into the cause and resulting environmental damage continue.
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00:00Thick smoke rises off England's coast. Here, the Portuguese-flagged cargo ship Solong
00:07slammed into the Stena Immaculate, a US military-chartered jet fuel tanker, on Monday,
00:13bursting into flames and dumping fuel, oil and chemicals into the North Sea.
00:18It is unusual that this accident happened, because the Stena vessel,
00:22full of aviation fuels at anchor, and the Portuguese vessel, the Solong,
00:28basically powered into her. Now, there were reports of fog earlier,
00:32but modern ships have anti-collision systems, they have radar and so on.
00:38Some sources say all 37 crew members were rescued from the blaze.
00:42Others say one mariner is still missing.
00:45But what's certain is the chaotic scene has many experts asking,
00:50was it a failure of the ship's GPS systems, or was it simply human error?
00:55All these vessels now have a thing called AIS, and they have positioning,
01:01and they've got every bit of kit that's known to man about how to navigate,
01:06and radars and everything. So it's a very unusual and tragic accident, there's no doubt about it.
01:12The Solong should have avoided it, and it would be down to incompetence on behalf of Solong.
01:17There is no reason why in the 21st century two ships could collide.
01:22The crash also threatens the environment. A spokesperson for the UK's prime minister says
01:28there's fear for the area's marine life, as jet fuel from the tanker pours into the sea.
01:34The problem with this sort of spill is that it will evaporate, which is
01:37probably good news for the ocean, not such good news for the atmosphere,
01:41but also it makes it more dangerous in terms of likely explosions. So, you know,
01:46it has to be dealt with very carefully. And at the moment, you know, the winds
01:49are carrying it towards the coast. I think it's highly unlikely it's going to explode
01:53when it hits the coast, but it will cause pollution incidents along the coast.
01:59More work will go into finding out exactly why the crash happened,
02:02and how bad it is for the environment. In the meantime, the UK government says
02:07it will look into how to best clean up the mess.
02:10Scott Huang in San Ichi for Taiwan Plus.