The US Coast Guard witnessed the unloading of an undetermined quantity of diesel from a 13-meter vessel on Tuesday, immersed in port 11 of the San Juan pier.
As the Coast Guard explained in a statement, it was its officers who received in San Juan, this Monday at 08:57 local time (12:57 GMT), a phone call and an e-mail from the National Response Center of the same agency warning of the situation.
After that, the Coast Guard alerted several agencies and dispatched a team of contamination investigators to the pier where the sunken vessel, named Ajo del País, is located.
According to Coast Guard data, the gas tank of the Ajo del País ship has a maximum capacity of 1,514 liters.
However, the Coast Guard does not know how much diesel the ship discharged or how much is left in the tank, or the cause of the discharge.
In turn, the Coast Guard’s Incident Management Division has warned the public that a strong smell of diesel is expected in the area, which extends west from Pier 11 to the ship terminals of cruise from the port of San Juan to the base of the American agency.
For their part, clean-up crews installed sorbent booms around the ship to control the release of fuel, while trying to recover the fuel remaining in the tanks.
As maintenance efforts continue, the Coast Guard is coordinating with local and on-island federal agencies to keep them informed of the status and progress of the accident.
“We are working with the organization in charge of removing the fuel to recover the greatest amount of product discharged and eliminate the threat of contamination from the Port of San Juan,” said the head of the incident management division. of the coastguard sector. .de San Juan, Lieutenant Commander Alberto Martínez.
“We are focused on resolving this situation as soon as possible while protecting public health and mitigating any future impact on the environment,” he added.