Panaji, Oct 25 (IANS) The Goa government has summoned the captain and owner of a 3,000 ton capacity chemical tanker ferrying naphtha, which is feared to be drifting towards the shore due to strong winds and stormy conditions at sea.
“We have called the ship captain. He should not leave Goa. We have summoned the owner of the ship too for enquiries,” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant told reporters on Friday.
The unmanned tanker Nu Shi Nalini, carrying a cargo of nearly 3,000 tons of naphtha and anchored five nautical miles off Goa on the directions of the Mormugao Port Trust, on Thursday began to drift towards the shore of the state capital, due to strong winds and rough seas.
Sawant on Thursday had said that multiple state and central agencies were trying to stabilise the tanker and one of the options being explored was to use helicopters to land two experts onboard the tanker in order to navigate it to safety.
The boarding operations, however, could not take place last night due to stormy seas, owing to the passage of cyclone Kyarr in the Arabian Sea.
Sawant also said that while all precautions were being taken, the state administration would file a complaint against the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) for acting in a negligent manner.
“We are filing a case against MPT too,” Sawant said.
The state administration is already probing the role of the authorities of Goa’s only major port, on whose instructions the vessel was parked five nautical miles off Goa’s coast, with an impending cyclone.
–IANS
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