Salvage of Lost Survey Ship Will Pause for King Charles' Visit to Samoa
The salvage response to the lost New Zealand Navy survey vessel HMNZS Manawanui will pause for a week while Samoa hosts a high-profile Commonwealth meeting, attended by King Charles III. The king's lodgings will be within a few miles of the wreck site, and work will be limited to observation and monitoring for the duration of his stay.
Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa told reporters Friday that response work, including dive and coastline operations, would be paused for the duration of the conference.
As of Thursday, a contractor was preparing to remove three lost shipping containers from the reef off the coast of Tafitoala. The local contractor, ARK Marine, plans to float the boxes off the reef intact. One has already been emptied by responders; one contains trash, and the last one contains food. The boxes are small 10-foot units, but may be harder to move because of the site. "The containers are not watertight and have sustained some structural damage, and are being moved by tides and swell," the New Zealand Defence Force told local media.
The job is expected to take three days, NZDF spokesman Commodore Andrew Brown told New Zealand's 1News, assuming favorable weather conditions. It was unclear if the container removal element of the response would be paused, as suggested by Prime Minister Mata'afa.
New Zealand's military says that only a slight quantity of diesel fuel has escaped from the Manawanui's engine room, and that the ship's main tanks are intact. No shoreline impacts have been observed, and a minor surface slick seen from the air has been dissipating out at sea. However, local residents have been instructed not to fish in the area during the salvage operation, and many are upset about the risk of pollution. Samoa's economy is less developed, and many residents are dependent upon subsistence fishing for their income and sustenance.
Fishermen and tourism operators near the wreck site have called for compensation for loss of income, but New Zealand's government has so far resisted the question, suggesting that it is too early to understand the impact of the sinking - particularly since the evidence released so far suggests only limited amounts of pollution. This view is not shared by all local stakeholders: Samoa's Marine Pollution Advisory Committee believes that the ship lost about 200,000 liters of fuel, or about 17 percent of the 950 tonnes of diesel on board. The NZDF believes that the true size of the release was far smaller, since all of the main fuel tanks are undamaged.