A total of 3,303 tons of contaminated sand and soil were collected. In the port of Anapa, 100 cubic meters of water were treated with absorbents and four tons of oil-containing liquid were collected, the Ministry said Friday in a press release.

Some six thousand people and more than 250 means are involved in the clean-up work, according to the agency.

On December 15, tankers Volgoneft 212, with 13 crew members on board, and Volgoneft 239, with 14 seamen, were wrecked in the area of the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. On board the two vessels were about 9,200 tons of fuel oil in total.

The breakdown, caused by a storm, resulted in the spillage of some 3,000 tons of fuel. The oil slick polluted dozens of kilometers along the Kuban coast, particularly in the area of Anapa, an important summer resort on Russia’s Black Sea coast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the fuel spill on Russia’s Black Sea coast an ecological disaster.

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