Indian Coast Guard has begun cleaning up oil leaking from a merchant ship that sank off Mumbai, dpa quoted a news report as saying Sunday. An operation to "neutralize" the oil spill spread over an area of seven nautical miles had been launched and two Coast Guard ships were already at the site, the IANS news agency reported. "Coast Guard ship Samudra Prahari on patrol immediately responded and used oil spill dispersant to neutralize the spilled oil," a navy official told the IANS adding another vessel was also pressed into service. The Panama-flagged ship MT Rak Carrier, which was carrying a cargo of coal from Indonesia to India's western state of Gujarat, sank Thursday afternoon raising fears of an ecological hazard. The 30 crewmen aboard - Indonesians, Jordanians and Romanians - were rescued in a coordinated effort by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. It was laden with 60,000 tonnes of coal and 340 tonnes of fuel and diesel, the report said.
