INCOIS (Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services), Hyderabad, is working in close co-ordination with the Coast Guard in tracking the oil spill following the collision between two cargo ships at Kamarajar Port in Chennai on January 28.
Balakrishnan Nair, INCOIS scientist, said there was still uncertainty about how much of the high fuel oil has actually been spilled. Therefore, scenarios have been worked out for spill of 15 tonnes and 20 tonnes respectively.
INCOIS has set its own online oil spill trajectory prediction system to calculate the extent of oil drift.
Accordingly, as on February 1, 11 p.m., it was estimated that 27 km of coastline would have been affected if the oil spill was 15 tonnes and 29.52 km of coastline affected if the oil spill was 20 tonnes.
The mass balance shows that if the spill is 15 tonnes, the floating spill is 0.7 tonne, beached oil is 9.5 tonne and 4.8 tonne is likely to have got evaporated.
And, if the spill is 20 tonnes, floating oil is 1 tonne, beached oil is 12.6 tonne and 6.5 tonne is likely to have got evaporated.
Mr. Nair said INCOIS would keep monitoring the oil spill for the next three days round the clock and latest reports would be available by 11 p.m. every day.
