A Russian oil tanker has split in half near the Black Sea, spilling an estimated 1,300 tonnes of oil.
The incident is being described as a serious environmental disaster. The tanker ran into difficulties during a severe storm in Ukrainian waters at the narrow strait separating the Black Sea from the Azov Sea in the eastern Crimea.
Harsh weather conditions are hampering efforts to rescue the 13 crewmembers.
The same storm in the Black Sea and Azov Sea also sank four freighters, three carrying sulphur and one with a cargo of scrap metal. The heavy seas also cracked the hull of another oil tanker, but the ship was afloat and not leaking.
The sunken tanker, Volganeft-139, had traveled from the Russian port of Azov and was anchored outside Kerch in Ukraine's eastern Crimea to ride out the weather, when high waves broke its back at around 0145am.
The 1978-built tanker, designed primarily for inland and coastal service, was carrying 4,000 tonnes of fuel oil in total when it was hit by the storm, which has knocked out electricity supplies to much of Crimea.
The likely effects of the spill were not immediately clear. A spill over 700 tonnes is considered large, but the biggest ones run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands.
