At almost

the same time as I was disembarking off the connecting flight from Brisbane, after my earlier flight from New Zealand, 100 kilometers away a bulk carrier fully-laden with 65,000 tonnes of coal & just under 1000 tonnes of heavy oil fuel for the journey to China, turned north about 12 kilometers too early, & ploughed into the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef at full speed.


The vessel had arrived at Gladstone from China late on Friday night and loaded coal overnight before departing at 10.54 on Saturday morning with a pilot who took the ship to open seas before disembarking at 12.59. But, despite a number of similar accidents & something like 20 years of bickering, it is still not mandated to have pilots guide ships through the passage to the northern end of the reef.

Fortunately, this time not too much oil—about two tonnes—has leaked from the rupture in the ship's hull; the problem is to unload the fuel oil that is left, & then decide if the complete cargo needs to be unloaded onto another ship. Peparations for the salvage operation are underway; & all this week, heavy helicopters have been shaking the house, tracking down the path of the lagoons, away from built-up areas, long steel hawsers underneath them to which are attached the equipment necessary to carry out the salvage operation.

After a year of floods, bushfires & cyclones, it's a bit of a change to have a man-made disaster happening on the doorstep.