18 December 2024 / 17:11

• Sea currents are steadily retaining oil pollution in the Kerch Bay waters
• The Bulgarian Black Sea Coast is not expected to be affected

No significant change in the situation caused by the oil spill in the Kerch Strait is observed.

According to the Center for Integrated Management and Monitoring of the Coastal Zone at the “N. Y. Vaptsarov” Naval Academy, as of 12:30 today, up-to-date satellite images of the affected area after the oil spill near the Kerch Strait are already available.

The area of the incident was flown over by the Sentinel-1 satellite. As a result of the analysis of the satellite data, an oil spill with a length of about 7.5 km was established in front of the port of the city of Volna, which is located approximately 656 km from the Bulgarian coast. See the following images.

[снимки]

The Center for Integrated Management and Monitoring of the Coastal Zone at the “N. Y. Vaptsarov” Naval Academy also provided the Ministry of Environment with data on the simulations performed to predict the movement and spread of the observed spill up to and including December 25, 2024, using forecast data on sea currents from Copernicus. The analysis shows that the marine currents in the surface layers of the water area of the incidents will sustainably retain the oil pollution in the water area of the Kerch Bay. The Bulgarian Black Sea coast is not expected to be affected.

Tomorrow, the water area of the incident will be flown over again by the Sentinel-1 satellite, and the newly received data will be compared with those reported today.

According to Assoc. Prof. Nikolay Valchev, a specialist in hydrodynamics from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the forecast of the Black Sea Center for Monitoring and Forecasts shows a decrease in the speed of the currents in the spill area while maintaining a stable flow in an Eastern direction at a speed of about 30 cm/s.

Meanwhile, the independent news website maritime.bg published information that fuel oil continues to leak from the tanker that crashed at the entrance to the Kerch Strait (https://www.maritime.bg/118196/).

Current animated maps for the period 18-21.12.2024, reflecting the forecast for the speed and direction of the currents by the Black Sea Monitoring and Forecasting Center at the Copernicus program.

[снимки]