Marine authorities are rushing to remove the oil spill from the Andaman Sea after the sinking of a Panama‑flagged cargo ship about 3 miles off Laem Phromthep in Phuket on Saturday while en route from Malaysia to Bangladesh.
Sixteen crew members of Sealloyd Arc were rescued and brought to safety in the evening when the ship took on water and sank as it passed south of the island.
Sealloyd Arc was carrying 297 containers, 14 of them containing hazardous materials, according to Thai officials.
All containers sank with the 4,339‑tonne vessel.
An aerial survey detected an oil spill stretching westward, about 4.5 miles long and one mile wide, but there was no oil slick reported along Phuket's coastline so far.
Authorities have assessed the incident as a large‑scale situation with expanding impacts on the environment and potential hazards to navigation.
A command centre was set up on Sunday to coordinate agencies in managing the incident and restoring normal conditions as quickly as possible.
