It is unacceptable that the Guangdong authorities failed to immediately report an accident and oil spill in the Pearl River Delta. (不能接受廣東省未有就撞船及洩漏棕櫚油作出即時通報)
After pictures of greasy white balls washing onto the beaches of Lantau were posted on Facebook and media started to make enquiries, the Hong Kong government responded that ‘somewhere in the Pearl River Delta’ there had been a collision between two vessels, and ‘some cargo was lost’ – two days earlier.
Large volume of palm oil arrived on Hong Kong’s shore, together with many fish died eating the fat. Groups of volunteers went out cleaning up. It was not until Tuesday that Government officials showed up on the beach and in front of media.
We learned from an international shipping magazine, TradeWinds(http://www.tradewindsnews.com/), that the collision involved a Japanese chemical tanker, ‘Global Apollon’, carrying 9,000 tons of palm oil and ‘Kota Ganteng’, a Pacific International Lines (PIL) containership. (航運資訊網站率先披露了相撞船隻的名稱)
It took the government 10 days before they confirmed the exact location of the accident, just outside Hong Kong’s boundary. We have still to find out who will have to pay for the clean-up and the damage. (香港政府十日後才公布撞船具體地點距離港水域僅數公里）
This complete failure of our ‘One Country, Two Systems’ is unacceptable. The Guangdong Provincial Maritime Safety Authorities failed to put out an alert until after palm oil started to pollute our beaches.
We need a transparent and effective system reporting(有效通報機制)marine traffic and incidents in the Pearl River Delta and a functioning emergency response system(緊急應變系統)to contain damage and pollution.