Stricken ship off NZ fully evacuated

Vessel sends out mayday alarm as it continues to leak oil into the sea in heavy weather.

The cargo ship stranded on a reef off New Zealand was fully evacuated in heavy weather after sending out a mayday alarm as it continued to leak heavy fuel oil into the sea.
Maritime New Zealand said on Tuesday that the 25-man mainly Filipino crew had been lifted off the 47,000 tonne MV Rena, which has been aground off the east coast port city Tauranga since last week as a precautionary measure.
The agency said the loaded container ship was still intact and an aerial survey showed "no obvious sign of deformation", but it was moving around in 3-4-metre sea swells and winds gusting to 46km an hour.
It said an estimated 130-350 tonnes of oil had now leaked from the vessel and a "significant" amount was still leaking into the ocean.
Earlier, many of the crew had been evacuated but the captain and salvage workers had remained on board. But all have now left the ship.
Michael Morrah, a journalist from New Zealand's TV3 television station, told Al Jazeera: "Tt is trying conditions, but all the staff have been accounted for.
"But there has been a leak of 200-300 tonnes of oil from the ship, and in the coming days it will be noticeable, it will be a large scale environmental disaster."
The 236-metre ship had suffered more damage leading to additional flooding in the forward holds, but that would help to settle it on the reef, a statement said.
Meanwhile, small amounts of oil from the ship has begun washing up at a popular recreational beach.
After beginning an operation on Sunday to extract up to 1,700 metric tonnes of oil from the stricken ship, marine crews halted pumping work on Monday due to worsening weather.
They managed to removed just 10 metric tonnes of oil before work was called off ahead of forecast gale-force winds and swells.
"The weather is expected to deteriorate in the coming days, so we are working around the clock to remove the oil," the agency said in a statement.