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As salvage begins, no oil spilling from tanker fire by Houthis in Red Sea

As salvage operations began on a deserted Greekflagged oil tanker with deck fires still burning from Houthi rebel attacks, the EU's Red Sea marine objective Aspides said on Thursday that no oil spill has actually been spotted.

Yemen's Houthi militants carried out numerous assaults, including planting bombs on the currently disabled 900-foot ( 274.2-meter) Sounion that is packed with about 1 million barrels of oil. On Wednesday, the Iran-aligned militants stated they would permit salvage crews to tow the ship - which has actually been on fire since Aug. 23 - to safety.

It would appear, at least for now, that cooler heads dominated, Lars Jensen, CEO of industry consultancy Vespucci Maritime, stated on LinkedIn.

The Houthis have sunk 2 vessels in their 10-month drone and rocket project versus industrial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The attacks are in uniformity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and likely will continue if a ceasefire is not reached.

The EU mission vowed to assist in any courses of action in coordination with European authorities and neighboring nations to avert a devastating ecological crisis and rescue Sounion.

On Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh stated the barrels of petroleum on the Sounion were undamaged, that the vessel itself was leaking some oil from where it was hit, which several fires were still burning.

The Houthis' choice to approve rescue teams safe access to the Sounion came after several countries voiced humanitarian and environmental issues. The relocation may help avoid what experts alerted might be a devastating spill of 150,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Red Sea.

A spill of that volume would be over half the size of the biggest ever recorded from a ship - 287,000 tonnes from Atlantic Empress in 1979, according to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation.

In spite of the respite in hostilities, risks to team members, vessels and the environment from Houthi attacks stay.

Even if the (Sounion) can be towed away and we avoid an environmental catastrophe the hazard has not disappeared, Jensen said, including that there are dozens of oil tankers and other merchant ships still running in high-risk locations of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

(source: Reuters)