World

Europe Storm Sinks Tanker

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 30, 2000 / 7:40 AM EST / CBS

An Italian cargo ship carrying 6,000 tons of toxic chemicals sank in the English Channel Tuesday as a major storm system continued to rage across Western Europe, wreaking havoc on land, sea and air.

Storm-related deaths rose to at least 15, with six confirmed dead in an Italian military helicopter crash and one Danish rescue worker drowned while trying to help the crew of a German cargo ship caught in a North Sea storm.

Eight people - four in France, three in Britain and one in Ireland - were killed by the storm Monday, mostly in traffic accidents involving fallen trees.

The Italian tanker Ievoli Sun, whose 14-member crew had been rescued Monday, sank 11 miles northwest of the Channel island of Alderney as it was being towed to the French port of Cherbourg, the Brest maritime command said.

The stricken tanker was carrying isopropyl, methyl ethyl ketone and 4,000 tons of styrene - a hydrocarbon used for making synthetic plastics. It reported a hole in its double hull in heavy weather on Monday and radioed for help.

Environmental groups warned that the chemicals - especially styrene - could cause serious ecological problems if they leak from the ship and get blown toward the French coast.

Styrene, used in the manufacture of plastics, is highly toxic and causes cancer in laboratory animals.

"There is a potential for a serious marine pollution incident here," said Paul Johnson, a Greenpeace International scientist based at Exeter University in southwest England.

France is still trying to clean up a massive oil spill from December that polluted much of the Atlantic coast's picturesque beaches and craggy coastline.

In Italy, a military police helicopter crashed off a Tuscan island overnight, killing at least six of the officers aboard.

A search was under way Tuesday to find two other people aboard, including a prisoner being transported from the island of Capraia to Leghorn, on the Tuscan coast.

The helicopter crashed just after takeoff, in a violent storm.

"I didn't hear any explosion beforehand," port official Maurizio Capomandirola told the ANSA news service. "Only a sort of crash when it ended in the water."

Off the west coast of Denmark, a rescue worker fell overboard and drowned and another was seriously injured while trying to help the crew of the German cargo ship Faros.

The eight-man crew gathered in a lifeboat, but it capsized. All eight eventually climbed aboard a rescue dinghy from the Danish ship.

Fierce storms had barreled across western Europe on Monday, grounding flights, cutting power to thousands of homes, stranding ferry passengers and snarling road and rail traffic.

The aftermath of severe gusts and heavy rain continued to plague Britain on Tuesday with train services delayed, roads closed and river flood warnings remaining in force.

Nearly 30 rivers in southwest England were at risk of severe flooding, officials said.

But most of the country's transportatio system was expected to be back to normal by midmorning. Railtrack, the private company that operates Britain's rail network, said about 1,000 trees had been cleared from lines in southern England alone.

British insurers scaled back estimates of storm damage Tuesday, saying structural damage did not appear to be in the league of a 1990 storm that caused damages of more than $3 billion.

"We believe it will be millions rather than billions," said Malcolm Tarling, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers.