Authorities say a Chinese coal ship was not taking a shortcut through the Great Barrier Reef when it ran aground on a shoal.

The Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng 1 hit Douglas Shoal, east of Rockhampton, rupturing a fuel tank and spilling oil into the ocean on Saturday afternoon.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has revealed the crew lodged a shipping plan outlining its intention to take the route between Douglas Shoal and the Capricorn group of islands to the south.

There is a six nautical mile gap between the two, but it is within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park’s designated shipping area.

Questions have been raised about why the ship did not travel further north before turning.

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) says the ship was not on a preferred route but it is not illegal to travel through it.

Investigators are still looking into why the ship veered off course far enough to hit the shoal.

Tugboats are being used to stabilise the ship and authorities say the oil must be removed before any attempt is made to move the vessel.

The ship has leaked about two tonnes of oil and maritime authorities are trying to stop more seepage.

Authorities say chemical dispersants have broken up the spill and it is unlikely the ship will break up.

MSQ spokesman Patrick Quirk says salvage experts are considering what to do with the cargo of 65,000 tonnes of coal.

“They’re going through the ship from the bow to the stern seeing what’s damaged, seeing what’s leaking,” he said.

“They’ll run that through their calculations. That’ll give them the structural strength of the vessel.

“That’ll allow us to know when she’s floating the stresses and strains on the ship and whether we need to take out cargo to ensure her safety.”

PM’s anger

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd flew over the affected area with AMSA officials on Tuesday morning.

Mr Rudd says those responsible must be brought to account.

“It is outrageous that any vessel could find itself 12 kilometres off course in the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

Mr Rudd says he takes threats to the reef extremely seriously.

“From my point of view as Prime Minister of Australia, there is no greater natural asset for Australia than the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

“I take any threat to the Great Barrier Reef fundamentally seriously.

“The practical challenge is to deal with this situation now. The practical challenge then is to bring to account those who are responsible.”

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has accused the Prime Minister of watching the oil spill but not acting to fix the problem.

Mr Rudd says Maritime Safety Authority workers will arrive in central Queensland on Wednesday to help with the clean-up.

But Mr Abbott says the Prime Minister’s assurances are not good enough.

“We have a Prime Minister who is no good at making things happen,” he said.

“We have him flying over the oil spill in the Barrier Reef. We want a Prime Minister who fixes problems; who doesn’t watch problems.”

Greens Leader Bob Brown has accused bulk carriers of using the pristine waters of the Great Barrier Reef as a “coal highway” and says authorities are turning a blind eye to the problem.

The Chinese bulk carrier Shen Neng 1 was fully loaded when it ran aground on Douglas Shoal off Rockhampton on Saturday. It leaked about two tonnes of oil and maritime authorities are trying to stop more seepage.

Investigators are looking into why the ship was 15 nautical miles off course, raising the possibility that it was taking a shortcut through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) says ships have been caught and prosecuted in the past for taking shortcuts through the reef.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd flew over the stricken coal carrier this morning with representatives from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

Senator Brown, who is in Rockhampton after inspecting the grounded ship, says there is growing speculation that a large number of huge ships, including oil tankers, are moving illegally through the lane near the Douglas Shoal.

“Nothing has been done about it by the authorities,” he said.

“Now that is one of the matters that needs to be cleared up and I will be busying myself today to establish where the Australian Federal Police are in their enquiries about how this disastrous situation has arisen.

“The Queensland press is reporting today that fishermen say they see at least one of these large bulk carriers moving illegally through to the south of Douglas Shoal each day.”

The Greens leader also called for a complete review about the number and size of ships moving through the Great Barrier Reef.

“This is the $60 billion-a-year, largely foreign-owned coal industry, that is making a coal highway out of the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

“Secondly, there needs to be pilots aboard and there needs to be very strict laws including monitoring of where these ships are.

“They should be checked before they leave port to see that they are, where they are going and if they are seaworthy and that they are properly able to handle the conditions.

“There needs to be a radical overview of where this huge coal export industry, whether these ships need to use the Reef at all and what the alternatives are.”

Senator Brown says it is not yet known why the ship was off course.

“There is no explanation except the obvious one that the Commonwealth and state authorities hadn’t required it to have a pilot aboard, and they should have,” he said.

“This was a matter of major debate more than a decade ago.

“It was clear that there were conjunct reasons – very, very strong reasons – for protecting this natural wonder of the world, the Great Barrier Reef.

“These are migratory sea lanes also for dugong, for whales, for turtles. It is a major fish area and of course, underlain by the fantastic coral of the Great Barrier Reef itself.”

Shortcuts

Maritime Safety Queensland general manager Patrick Quirk says he believes reports from fishermen that ships regularly take shortcuts through the reef.

“I do not doubt what the fishermen are telling us. We have thousands and thousands of vessel movements on the Queensland coast every year,” he said.

“All I’m saying is that some vessels may not always utilise best practice. We are not always aware of those occasions.”

But GBRMPA chairman Russell Reichelt says he does not know of any major incidents like this in the past.

“The incidents have tended to be very sporadic and occasional,” he said.

“Every year or few years, a small amount of oil will be spilled from a vessel and similarly ships go off course and run aground on the reef, but in my experience they’re very rare,” he said.

He says he is not aware of ships taking shortcuts through the Douglas Shoal area.

“There have been detections of ships further south that have appeared to be taking shortcuts in areas where they wouldn’t be permitted,” he said.

“Those ships are investigated and prosecuted, but that particular area, no.”

Mr Quirk says the ship’s crew has yet to be interviewed.

“Investigators from the Australian Safety Transport Board are in Gladstone at the moment [and have] done some preliminary interviews with some shore-based people,” he said.

“We want to ensure the ship is in a stable position before allowing the crew to be interviewed by the investigators.

“The crew are on board and that formal investigation will get underway as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Authorities have worked through the night to determine how to salvage a coal carrier grounded in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park off central Queensland.

Chinese bulk carrier Shen Neng 1 was travelling at full speed when it rammed into a sandbar and the Douglas Shoal off Great Keppel Island, east of Rockhampton, late Saturday afternoon and began leaking oil.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will inspect the site this morning and the Federal Government has moved to establish a special panel that will assess the damage to the reef.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says the operation to salvage the ship could be one of the most complex and difficult in Australia’s history.

Authorities were on board the ship overnight to assess how it can be salvaged.

The 230-metre vessel has moved 20 metres since then but officials say it is unlikely there will be any “catastrophic break-up” of the ship.

Two salvage tugs are battling to hold the ship against the wind, tides and swell.

Authorities are trying to stabilise the ship so it can be removed from its precarious position.

More damage

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) says the ship is suffering further damage as it moves.

MSQ general manager Patrick Quirk says authorities have been racing to stabilise the coal carrier and stop it breaking apart.

“The double-bottom tanks which hold water ballast normally have been breached,” he said.

“They provide the buoyancy for the ship and we also suspect that one of the fuel tanks has also been breached.

“We also believe that some of the tanks below the engine room have been breached [and] we believe the rudder has been seriously damaged.”

Mr Quirk says he is confident the situation can be stabilised.

“At the moment, with the action of the wind and the tide and the swell, the vessel is still rubbing on the reef. It’s still dancing on the reef. It’s crabbing across,” he said.

“It’s crabbed across 20, 30 metres. As it does that, it’s obviously doing more damage to itself and one of our aims is to stabilise the vessel.

“We are working closely with the Department of Community Safety, the local SES groups and the regional council in terms of preparing ourselves for the eventuality of oil on the beaches.

“I want to emphasise that we have no evidence at the moment of major oil on the water but we are preparing for the worst.”

Oil spill

MSQ spokesman Mark Strong says chemical dispersants have been successful in breaking up a three-kilometre by 100-metre spill.

“People would have seen the coral dust, the white dust around the ship. That is coral dust rather than oil. There is a very small amount of oil only,” he said.

‘Hefty penalties’

MSQ says the captain and crew of the Shen Neng 1 have been cooperative. They expect a more detailed assessment this afternoon of the condition of the ship.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is investigating what breaches or possible offences may have occurred under Commonwealth law.

Ms Bligh says there may be hefty penalties imposed.

“The owners of this shipping company face a total fine of $1 million,” she said.

“The ship’s captain could face a fine of up to [$250,000] …. so this is a serious offence.

“This ship has acted illegally by being in this restricted zone and I hope they face the full force of the law.”

But Capricorn Conservation Council spokesman Ian Herbert says the State Government must take some responsibility as well.

Mr Herbert says it has failed to acknowledge the environmental harm caused by industries like coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the ship’s grounding is a sign of things to come.

“They are planning to build up Gladstone as the major industrial port for the whole of Australia, which will increase the shipping by many times coming out of Gladstone,” he said.

“No matter how hard they try, it is one of risk level – the more exposure we have to large number of ships, the more inevitable there will be these kind of occurrences.”

‘Wake-up call’

Dr Michael White from the University of Queensland hopes the incident prompts state and federal governments to act.

“It’s very unfortunate this is our third oil spill in less than two years,” he said.

“I do hope state and federal governments will see it as a wake-up call. I’d like to see a bit more expertise in their government policies.

“There really is no party of any shade of politics which has a proper maritime policy, which is a great pity.”

Dr White says he expects charges to be laid.

“There’s always a master and an owner charge after a grounding like this,” he said.

“Whether they’ve committed an offence is for the court, but part of the reason for charging them is to get at the insurance monies.”

Maritime policy

There are calls for Australia’s major political parties to develop better maritime policies as the ship remains grounded.

Mr Herbert says he is also angry that no marine pilot was required to be on the ship.

He says a vessel-tracking system is in place 120 kilometres north of where the carrier ran aground to detect ships that have moved off course and alert them.

However, the area where the incident occurred is outside of the monitoring area set by the Commonwealth.

Federal Opposition transport spokesman Warren Truss says it is time for that to change.

“Fishing vessels, tiny fishing vessels, are all required to have vessel-monitoring systems that suggests to make sure they don’t catch fish in a zone where they are not supposed to be,” he said.

“So if small fishing vessels have to carry this kind of system, it seems logical that large bulk carriers should do as well.”

However, MSQ says it had been looking at extending the coverage area for tracking ships off the state’s coast and the area was outside the reef’s vessel tracking system area.

Mr Quirk says it was looking at expanding the coverage area as part of its risk assessments on future port development.

“Under our risk analysis, though this has proved us wrong, I will admit, this was seen as a low-risk area because the navigation is fairly straightforward,” he said.

“I want to emphasise that. This is not an idea where we require complex navigation exercises.”

‘More pilots’

The Australasian Marine Pilots Institute (AMPI), the peak body for Australia’s marine pilots, says the grounding of the ship should draw attention to the state of maritime regulation.

AMPI says the number of ships travelling along the Queensland coast will increase due to the resources boom.

AMPI president Captain Peter Liley says it is time all levels of government realised the need for more pilots.

“I’d like to see the government look at how the pilotage is regulated in the Barrier Reef and see if it needs to be changed to make sure that we have a demonstrably well-managed pilot service in that area, because it is a complex task and we will be dealing with more and more traffic,” he said.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says she wants authorities to “throw the book” at the owners of the Chinese coal ship spilling oil into the pristine waters around the Great Barrier Reef.

The Chinese vessel Shen Neng 1, which ran aground on Douglas Shoal, east of Rockhampton near Great Keppel Island on Saturday, is currently being knocked around by winds and tides and is being held steady by a tug boat.

Authorities say there is very little oil leaking from the boat today, but if any oil makes it to shore it will be in the Shoalwater Bay area.

Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman Patrick Quirk says SES crews are ready to help if needed.

“They’re on stand-by if we do have a major spill from that vessel,” he said. “It’s likely to come aground somewhere north of Great Keppel Island.”

Salvage experts are on board assessing damage and plans to move the boat.

It is estimated that damage to the ship’s hull and fuel tanks caused a narrow spill of three to four tonnes of oil about three kilometres in length and 100 metres wide yesterday.

Ms Bligh says she has been talking to Maritime Safety over the spill and says aerial dispersant spray has helped break up some of the oil.

But she says she cannot believe the ship was so far off course and sailing through a restricted area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

She says charges could be laid against the shipping company owners as well as the ship’s captain.

“This ship is in Australian waters and the investigation will be undertaken by Commonwealth authorities,” she said.

“I think the book should be thrown at this organisation. This is a very delicate part of one of the most precious marine environments on earth and there are safe, authorised shipping channels and that’s where this ship should have been.

“This is an extremely unusual event.”

Ms Bligh says the salvage could take weeks.

“It’s possible that this could be one of the most complex and difficult salvage operations we’ve seen, certainly in Queensland maritime history, and possibly Australia,” she said.

Call for swift action

Like many ships, the Shen Neng 1 did not have a marine pilot with specialist local knowledge on board.

The Federal Opposition says Australian Defence Force assets should be made available to help salvage the ship.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt says the situation has to be dealt with quickly.

“What we need to make sure is that the Prime Minister is personally in charge, that he assumes responsibility, and therefore appropriate Defence assets should be made available,” he said.

“The ship could easily break up, and to be wise after the fact will be an environmental disaster for the Barrier Reef.”

Just last year the container carrier Pacific Adventurer spilled a large amount of oil after striking trouble off Moreton Island and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

Federal Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett says he will await the results of an investigation before passing judgment on what happened in the latest incident.

Mr Garrett points out that the Queensland Government is leading the operation with assistance from the Commonwealth.

‘Big concern’

Island resident Carl Svendsen makes his living from the reef and is familiar with the area 70 kilometres east of the island where the ship ran aground.

“[I'm] quite shocked to hear in this day and age that a ship had run up on the reef out here in reasonable weather conditions,” he said.

“In that particular area the reef is very pristine. So you’ve got all your coral reef and there’s all the sea birds around.

“For example, very large seabird populations nest and breed there so this is just about in visible distance, just over the horizon from there. So [it is] a very big concern for us.”

Marine geologist Dr Greg Webb from Queensland University of Technology is also familiar with the incident site.

He says the good news is that the reefs are well spaced out, however the spill will add extra strain where it is not needed.

“The reefs are terribly resilient. If you apply enough different stresses to them all at once, we really don’t know what the effects could be,” he said.

“In the past we always just thought a reef could put up with anything, and I guess over the last decade or so, we’re beginning to understand that maybe they can’t.”

There are fears that a coal ship which has run aground near the Great Barrier Reef could break up, spilling more oil into the pristine waters of the marine park.

The Chinese vessel Shen Neng 1 ran aground on Douglas Shoal, east of Rockhampton near Great Keppel Island, on Saturday.

Authorities say the vessel is balanced precariously on the shoal and could break up. The crew is still on board.

It is estimated that damage to the ship’s hull and fuel tanks has caused a narrow spill of three to four tonnes of oil about three kilometres in length and 100 metres wide.

Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman Patrick Quirk says authorities are focusing on stabilising the ship to minimise the exposure and further risk to the reef.

“We have helicopters in the air assessing the damage around the ship. Indications are that any oil spill would have been on a very small amount,” he said.

It is unclear why the ship was travelling in a restricted part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Several state and federal agencies are investigating the incident.

Like many ships, it did not have a marine pilot with specialist local knowledge on board.

The Federal Opposition says Australian Defence Force assets should be made available to help salvage the ship.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt says the situation has to be dealt with quickly.

“What we need to make sure is that the Prime Minister is personally in charge, that he assumes responsibility, and therefore appropriate

Defence assets should be made available,” he said.

“The ship could easily break up, and to be wise after the fact will be an environmental disaster for the Barrier Reef.”

Salvage workers will deliver an initial report today about the condition and future of the ship.

Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman Mark Strong says they have sprayed the spill with chemical dispersants and may do so again today.

“The first run seemed to lead to an improvement in the oil clean-up. It certainly dispersed some of the oil that was there,” he said.

“It is a heavy fuel oil and as such is more resistant than normal to chemical dispersants, but the best time to attempt to disperse oil with chemical dispersant is in the first 24 hours.”

He says the ship must have been travelling well off course when it became stuck in a protected reef.

Mr Strong says a local navigator had been on the ship to guide it into open water but left before the accident occurred.

“The area is an environmentally sensitive area and… all shipping is banned from using that environmentally sensitive area,” he said.

“As a result, the vessel was significantly off the course that it should have been on.”

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says a second salvage tug should be on site by about midday, but it is a very complex operation.

Yesterday Ms Bligh said it was not known why the ship was in a restricted part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

But Mr Strong says it could have been much worse.

“This spill certainly is not as bad as it could initially have been,” he said.

“We still have only a small amount of fuel in the water.

“It is fuel from the vessel itself and that’s why we’re taking every precaution before a decision is made on how the vessel may be salvaged.”

‘Big concern’

Island resident Carl Svendsen makes his living from the reef and is familiar with the area 70 kilometres east of the island where the ship ran aground.

“[I'm] quite shocked to hear in this day and age that a ship had run up on the reef out here in reasonable weather conditions,” he said.

“In that particular area the reef is very pristine. So you’ve got all your coral reef and there’s all the sea birds around.

“For example, very large seabird populations nest and breed there so this is just about in visible distance, just over the horizon from there. So [it is] a very big concern for us.”

Marine geologist Dr Greg Webb from Queensland University of Technology is also familiar with the incident site.

He says the good news is that the reefs are well spaced out, however the spill will add extra strain where it is not needed.

“The reefs are terribly resilient. If you apply enough different stresses to them all at once, we really don’t know what the effects could be,” he said.

“In the past we always just thought a reef could put up with anything, and I guess over the last decade or so, we’re beginning to understand that maybe they can’t.”

Just last year the container carrier Pacific Adventurer spilled a large amount of oil after striking trouble off Moreton Island and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

Federal Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett says he will await the results of an investigation before passing judgment on what happened in the latest incident.

Mr Garrett points out that the Queensland Government is leading the operation with assistance from the Commonwealth. It will be up to the Commonwealth, however, to determine whether charges should be laid.

Salvage crews have boarded a grounded coal ship in the Great Barrier Reef off the central Queensland coast.

The Chinese bulk carrier Shen Neng 1 is wedged on a section of reef and has leaked four tonnes of oil in marine park waters.

Maritime safety experts say it will be another day before they can assess the full extent of damage and work out how to move the ship from the reef.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will inspect the site on Tuesday and the Federal Government has moved to establish a special panel which will assess the damage to the reef.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he has asked the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) to coordinate the panel and the group will advise the Government on how the ship should be moved.

Two tugboats are in place to stabilise the ship and Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says salvage experts will consider pumping oil from the damaged vessel.

“The damage is extensive to the engine, to the rudder and other parts of the ship,” she said.

Ms Bligh says more than 900 tonnes of oil is still on board the ship.

“There is thought being given at the moment to whether the best way forward is to pump out the oil,” she said.

“That’ll be a decision ultimately of the salvage team and that is something that could be part of the salvage effort.”

‘Time bomb’

The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Australia director Gilly Llewellyn says the ship is a “ticking environmental time bomb”.

“We would potentially be looking at an environmental disaster,” Ms Llewellyn said.

“It would be an extremely large spill.”

But Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) is confident it will be able to stabilise the ship.

MSQ general manager Patrick Quirk says even though the ship is damaged, there is unlikely to be a “catastrophic break-up”.

Mr Quirk says the spill is less serious than first thought.

“We suspect at the moment that the oil has spilt not from the actual tanks but from some overflow pipes on the deck,” he said.

Planes were not sent out with dispersant chemicals this afternoon because the amount of spilt oil was too small.

Booms are expected to be used to limit the spread of oil, but maritime authorities say it may take weeks to refloat the coal carrier.

AMSA investigating

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says it is concentrating on securing the ship and cleaning up the pollution from the spill.

AMSA spokesman Graham Peachey says one of its ships will be travelling to the site of the leak to help with the clean-up on Wednesday.

“We will be investigating very thoroughly what happened,” he said.

“This is an extraordinarily valuable area in the Great Barrier Reef. It’s pristine and needs to be protected and there are rules there in place that need to serve a purpose and we’ll be investigating very thoroughly.”

Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter says some oil spilled from the ship may reach the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area by Wednesday and miss popular tourist islands.

“At this stage the advice we have seems to indicate that the islands Great Keppel and south are not likely to be impacted on,” he said.

Compensation

Meanwhile, Ms Bligh says no changes have been made to the amount of compensation shipowners are liable for if their boats create pollution damage.

Last year, the owners of the Pacific Adventurer offered $25 million in compensation after an oil spill off the south Queensland coast.

Ms Bligh says the Queensland Government will look into compensation issues after the oil spill in the reef is contained.

“This is an international cap and the Federal Government, through the minister Anthony Albanese, has formally made representations to the international body to lift that cap,” she said.

“My understanding is they have yet to do that, so we’ll look at that those issues as they arise but right now our first priority is to stabilise this vessel.”

Monitoring ships

The spill has also sparked criticism of a lack of monitoring of coal ships in the Great Barrier Reef.

Queensland Seafood Industry Association (QSIA) spokesman Michael Gardiner says there is more monitoring of fishing trawlers than large coal ships.

“All trawl vessels in Queensland are required to have a vessel monitoring device in place seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” he said.

“Here we’ve got these massive ships fully laden with coal and fuel oil traversing part of the marine park, and there’s certain parts there where there’s no vessel tracking at all.”

MSQ spokesman Patrick Quirk says the authority has been looking at expanding the tracking coverage area as part of its risk assessments on future port development.

“Under our risk analysis, though this has proved us wrong, I will admit, this was seen as a low-risk area because the navigation is fairly straight forward,” he said.

“I want to emphasise that this is not an idea where we require complex navigation exercises.”

Authorities say the coal carrier which ran aground on the the Great Barrier Reef has leaked fuel and could fall apart.

However the oil spill is not growing in size.

The Chinese ship was seriously damaged after running aground at full speed on the Douglas Shoal, east of Rockhampton in central Queensland, on Saturday afternoon.

Planes have been dropping oil dispersants on the spill, which the Maritime Safety Queensland says is three-kilometres long and 100-metres wide.

The chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt, says drops have been successful.

“I’m hopeful if that’s the only oil that we see spilled [that] we’re not looking at a major incident,” he said.

MSQ spokesman Patrick Quirk says the ship will not sink.

“But it is in danger of actually breaking its main structures and breaking into a number of parts,” he said.

The ship has more than 900 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board, and MSQ says a fuel tank with 150 tonnes of heavy oil has been breached, with an estimated three to four tonnes spilt so far.

“The continuing seepage of oil is probably the best case outcome we could expect,” Mr Quirk said.

Premier Anna Bligh says it is not known why the ship is in a restricted part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

“This area is off limits partly because it is the national park, but also [because] there is high risk of running aground,” she said.

Ms Bligh says the ship has been seriously damaged.

“This ship is in very poor condition as a result of the damage it has sustained and it will require a serious and specialist salvage operation,” she said.

Authorities say the owner have signed a deal with a salvage operator, and professional salvors are on their way.

SES crews are on standby for oil making it to shore.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says it is too early to say whether there will be any lasting effect on the Great Barrier Reef.

But the Greens’ lead Senate candidate in Queensland, Larissa Waters, say the spill could cause a similar environmental impact to one in Moreton Bay last year.

“As we saw in the Moreton Bay spill, which was initially small, but mushroomed out to a massive catastrophe, it’s looking more and more like we might have a repeat of this just off Great Keppel Island, which is a pristine area,” she said.

The ship had departed from the Port of Gladstone and was bound for China.