Basin exercise aimed at training of marine salvage activities arranged by Marine Rescue-Coordination Center of St. Petersburg (MRCC) involved five units of equipment PortNews IAA learnt from Leonid Belov, head of MRCC. The Smolny tanker owned by Kontur SPb LLC simulated the injured vessel. Baltic Basin Response Department provided its salving ship Kalinigradets, which hosted the headquarters of BBRD and the Emergency Ministry. The Ministry in its turn involved helicopter МI-8, RosMorPort – the Primorsk motor boat, while the portKronshtadt provided its motor boat GIMS with a rescue team. of
According to the scenario, the Smolny tanker collided with a cargo vessel Leda. The dry cargo carrier, which was on its way from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg, sank and six persons turned out to be in water, while heavy fuel oil leaked into the water through a leak. Mr. Belov told the exercise was divided into three stages. The first one was targeted at search and rescue of people. The motor boat left the Litke base for the site and the helicopter was sent from Kasimovo. The boat delivered divers in order to rescue people and examine the vessel’s damage. The second stage of the scenario implied the fire onboard the vessel. It was extinguished by the crews of Smolny and Kalinigradets.
The goal of the third stage was placing of slick bars. Initially it was planned to place 250 meters of slick bars, however bad weather forced the organizers to change the scenario and only 50 meters were placed. “The crews acted excellently,” Mr. Belov said. He also noted the participants of this exercise were the structures required in case of real emergency.