Estonian police on Wednesday impounded a tanker which discharged toxic waste in Africa that has killed at least eight people, on suspicions it was flushing similar waste into the Baltic sea.
The prosecutor’s office said the Panamanian-registered Probo Koala had been seized in the Estonian port of Paldiski.
“We have impounded the ship as it is under criminal investigation,” State Prosecutor Piret Seeman told Reuters.
Thousands of people in Ivory Coast have suffered vomiting, stomach pains and other symptoms caused by toxic fumes from waste from the ship discharged in late August. The incident has stretched the country’s health services and forced its cabinet to resign.
Estonia’s Environment Ministry said tests of the Baltic waters around the vessel had shown disturbing results.
“Preliminary analysis shows that it contains similar substances as those in the Ivory Coast,” a spokesman said.
Estonia has been asked by Ivory Coast to detain the ship, after an eighth person in the West African country died from exposure to the waste.
Greenpeace pushing for full inquiry
On Tuesday night environmental protesters hooked themselves up to the ship’s mooring lines to stop it leaving. They were later arrested by border guards and fined.
Greenpeace said the activists had moved in when they heard the ship, which they have tried to blockade by anchoring a protest vessel nearby, was about to sail.
The group welcomed the Estonian government’s action against the Probo Kola, and said that as a result it had called off its blockade of the ship.
“Greenpeace ... believes this will now spark a full international inquiry into all of the companies and regulatory agencies which failed to stop the dumping of deadly toxic waste in the Ivory Coast,” the group said in a statement.
“The Probo Kola is an international toxic crime scene and needs to be fully investigated,” the statement added.
French embassy officials on Tuesday said toxic matter recovered from 13 sites in Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan would be shipped to France for disposal.
In the Ivory Coast medical personnel had carried out 80,000 consultations linked to the dumping by Monday, an official said.
Trafigura, the Dutch-based oil trading firm which chartered the ship, described the waste as “chemical slops," a mixture of gasoline, spent caustic soda and water. It said it was a normal by-product of cleaning tanks used to transport fuel.