MANGALURU: Though the Coast Guard and Coastal Security Police succeeded in rescuing all 27 workers from a sinking barge at Ullal on Sunday, the barge was still stranded at the same place on Monday.
Though it was said that a team of experts from Mumbai would be coming on Sunday to move the barge, no team has arrived so far. Meanwhile, locals informed that they have spotted several items like gas cylinder and others from the barge floating towards the shore. They are eagerly waiting for more items and are keen on collecting them, sources said.
The dredger barges usually use furnace oil for operating the dredger unit while for navigation they use diesel. According to sources, the furnace oil and diesel were still in the tanks of the barge. This can cause an environmental concern also, they pointed out.
It can be recalled here that when the Eritrean freighter Den Den had sunk off Tanneerbavi in 2008 and another ship Asian Forest had sunk in 2009, eight nautical miles from Mangaluru coast had 75,000 litres of diesel and furnace oil which was removed by the Mumbai-based salvers.
The same procedure will be followed in the case of Ibis dredger barge. Meanwhile, the barge has sunk further on Monday. If the barge is not removed from the place in another few hours, it will go down, locals informed.