Investigation of shipwrecks in the Kerch Strait suspended

Inspectors have suspended the investigation of the case about accidents in the Kerch Strait, where on November 11 last year several ships sunk in the strongest storm.

The "Caucasian Knot" has already reported that a strong storm in November 2007 had caused several shipwrecks at a time in the water spaces of the Azov and Black Seas near the coast of the Krasnodar Territory.

Today, Mikhail Markarov, acting head of the Southern Investigatory Department for Transport of the Investigatory Committee of the Prosecutor's Office of Russia, has stated that the investigation was suspended as the inspectors had failed to establish the whereabouts of the person to be brought to responsibility - captain of the ship "Nakhichevan", who was registered as a missing person, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

The nature protection organization named "Ecozaschita" (Nature Protection) has named the spillage of petroleum products in the Kerch Strait among the five most catastrophic ecological of events of 2007. Ecologists emphasize that the government had not only failed to promptly liquidate the spillage, but also "made no public conclusions and decisions, which could protect the country in the future from this sort of accidents."

Meanwhile, as the IA "New Region" reported on October 20, the Kerch Strait is under a threat of pollution with oil. The island Kosa Tuzla contains some 10,000 tons of mazut-sandy mix gathered from the coast after the ship accidents in the Kerch Strait last November; during the nearest storm this mix can be washed off into the Strait.