Nearly nine months after a 37,210-ton container ship ran onto a New Zealand reef, spilling tons of oil and cargo in the country's worst environmental disaster, there is a spirit of forgiveness in the area. The desire for vengeance, which prevailed when the shipwreck polluted one of the country's finest coastlines and threatened its tourist economy, has disappeared, Stuart Crosby, mayor of the port city of Tauranga, told dpa.
The Filipino captain and his navigation officer have admitted criminal charges that could see them imprisoned for 7 years when they appear for sentencing on Friday. "But I can't see the benefit of a prison sentence," Crosby said Tuesday. "The sentence does not appear, from the feeling I'm getting, to be highly relevant in terms of the disaster.
"It has happened, there has been a tremendous response to clean it up and whatever the sentence is, it won't go anywhere near to acknowledging the huge risk that the captain put our community, both environmentally and economically. "I don't want him to go to prison. I would prefer that he is not put in charge of a vessel ever again - that's the key issue as far as I am concerned."
The captain and his second officer have been hiding in the care of fellow Filipino countrymen since the ship ploughed on to the reef at a near maximum speed of 17 knots (31.5 kilometres an hour) in the early hours of the skipper's birthday, October 5. Arrested soon after the grounding, they were freed on bail but a judge banned publication of their names and photographs for fear they would be attacked by locals angry at the devastating pollution they caused to one of the country's finest coastlines.
Some indigenous Maori families living on nearby Motiti Island, whose seafood diet was ruined, forgave them last month in an emotional meeting dubbed "good restorative justice," and would be content to see them sent home to rejoin their 23 fellow crew members who were repatriated. Wildlife officers picked up 2,410 dead seabirds, including little blue penguins, after the ship leaked about 350 tons of heavy fuel oil into the sea, and volunteers collected more than 1,000 tons of oily waste from 30 kilometres of usually pristine white sand beaches.
Hundreds of the 1,368 shipping containers fell overboard and many broke up on the rocks of Motiti Island and the coast, spilling a motley mess of blocks of butter, hamburger patties, lumber, household furniture, deer hides and other exports. The disaster shocked the South Pacific island nation, which promotes itself as being "100 percent pure" and relies on that tag to export the farm goods and seafood that the economy depends.
Both officers admitted changing the ship's log and other documents after it hit the reef, 22 kilometres off Tauranga, which has been on charts since French navigator Jules Dumont D'Urville named it Astrolabe after his ship in 1827. The reason the ship ran aground is still under investigation. The owner of the 236-metre Rena, the Greek Daina Shipping Company, has been charged with discharging harmful substances into the sea.
An interim report by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission in March said the Liberian-flagged ship changed course several times and had been urged by Tauranga harbour officials to make "best speed" to meet the pilot boat by a 3 am deadline dictated by ebbing tides. The report said the skipper puzzled over an intermittent radar echo 4.8 kilometres ahead as the ship sailed toward the reef but failed to see anything with binoculars from the bridge. Storms have battered the wreck, sinking the stern section after it broke in two but the bow remains stuck hard on the reef and salvage teams are still working to unload the remaining cargo, which last week included 300 tons of aluminium ingots.
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