MV Wakashio Incident – Our Webinar Series

It has been our pleasure to host a series of 6 webinars on the MV Wakashio incident.

This was the grounding on 25 July 2020 of a 300m bulk carrier on a coral reef on the southeastern coast of Mauritius.

The incident had some unique characteristics to it:

• The first major marine incident during COVID
• The first major incident involving a vessel using Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFO)

This forced responders to evolve ways of working to reduce the risk of COVID being imported into Mauritius which had escaped its effect and see how VLSFO behaved in large volumes in warm sea water.

It has been our privilege to hear from a range of contributors:

• Marine Scientists based on the island and despatched from CEFAS by the UK Government to support marine science response to the incident.
• Responders from PolyEco who were contracted by the Mauritius Government to assist in the clean-up of the spill and manage the waste disposal.
• Manufacturers who were providing equipment used in the spill.
• Incident Commander sent by IMO to support the Mauritius Government.

The objective of the webinar series has been to inform and educate but also make accessible the lessons that can be learned from a major incident like this.

We hope that this has been a useful series.

To access each webinar click on the links to each below:

Watch Part 1.
Watch Part 2.
Watch Part 3.
Watch Part 4.
Watch Part 5.
Watch Part 6.