Erika (ship)

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Erika
1999 oil spill map
1999 oil spill map
Ship data
flag MaltaMalta (sea trade and service flag) Malta
other ship names

Shinsei Maru

Ship type Tanker
home port Valletta
Shipyard Kasado shipyard
Others
Classifications Registro Italiano Navale

The Erika was an oil tanker that drove on behalf of the French group TotalFinaElf and caused an oil spill on the coast of Brittany in 1999 .

history

The Erika was built in 1975 by the Kasado shipyard in Kudamatsu , Japan ; the ship's first name was Shinsei Maru . On December 12, 1999, the ship of the Italian owner Giuseppe Savarese, registered in Malta , was sailing from Dunkirk to Livorno . With wind force ten and waves up to 14 meters high, it broke in two, sank off the Breton coast southwest of the port city of Lorient and lost around 17,000 tons of its tank load of 30,800 tons of oil. Previously, cracks up to three meters long and 15 centimeters wide had formed in the hull of the 10 percent overloaded tanker, which was only allowed to load a maximum of 28,000 tons of oil.

The damage caused was estimated at 500 million euros; the ecological damage to humans and animals as a result of the oil spill was not included. Between 150,000 and 300,000 seabirds were killed, including many guillemots .

During the process, which began in February 2007, it became known that the Italian owner of the Erika knew of poorly executed repair work. The surveyors of the Italian classification society RINA , against their better judgment, certified the ship's seaworthiness . The Tribunal Correctionnel of Paris sentenced on 16 January 2008, the company TotalFinaElf, the owner and the RINA to penalties and damages totaling around 200 million euros. The appeal was dismissed on March 30, 2010, thus confirming the judgment. A French court of cassation also rejected the last possible appeal in September 2012. In response to this, Total decided a day later to forego oil exploitation in the ecologically sensitive Arctic and recommends other oil companies to follow suit.

effect

The European Commission developed a series of packages of measures for safety at sea under the impression of major environmental damage from further shipping accidents. These were named ERIKA I (2001/2002 including double-walled tankers), ERIKA II (2002 European Maritime Safety Agency , VTMIS maritime traffic control and funds for environmental damage) and ERIKA III (2006 including places of refuge ).

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maximum sentences for Erika oil spill confirmed . In: taz , March 31, 2010
  2. ↑ 12 o'clock news bulletin of the Swiss radio station DRS from March 30, 2010
  3. ^ A news bulletin from Radio DRS on September 25, 2012
  4. ↑ Sven G. Kaufmann: Need for reform at the international level for the legal processing of tanker disasters: The Erika judgment of the French Court of Cassation of September 25, 2012 . In: Journal for Foreign Public Law and International Law (ZaöRV), 03/2013, p. 509
  5. ↑ Deutschlandfunk news bulletin of September 26, 2012, 10:00 a.m.
  6. ↑ ERI - Maritime Safety: Erika I, II en III . Flemish Port Commission, accessed September 7, 2019.

Coordinates: 47 ° 9 ′ 0 ″  N , 4 ° 15 ′ 0 ″  W.