Clean-up at Russian beaches continues after oil spill

On December 15, two Russian oil tankers, the Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 were hit by a storm in the Kerch Strait, with one sinking and the other running aground.

The ships were carrying 9,200 tonnes of fuel oil, around 40 percent of which may have spilled into the sea, according to Russian authorities.

Russian volunteers and rescuers continue to clean up beaches off the coast of southern Russia after an oil slick from two damaged tankers this month may have polluted up to 200,000 tonnes of soil.

President Vladimir Putin last week called it an "Ecological Disaster".

"The fuel oil still remains in the sea and in quite large quantities, obviously. It will continue to be discharged onto the cleaned shore," says Victor Danilov-Danilyan, scientific director of the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, during a press conference in Moscow, adding, "It's a nightmare.