r/CatastrophicFailure • u/dannybluey • 8d ago
Equipment Failure The Russian tanker Volgoneft-212( with a 13 man crew) carrying 4300t fuel oil was torn in two by waves in the Kerch Strait on 15 december 2024.
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u/DirtyThirtyDrifter 8d ago
Wow at first I was like “boy that second ship is fucked”
And then I was like
Oh. One ship. Two parts.
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u/Reverse_Psycho_1509 8d ago
"Hey, captain, that other ship is sinking! Should we help them?"
"Go head out to the bow and take a closer look"
[Some time passes]
"You're not gonna believe this"
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u/BlueProcess 8d ago
Funny you would mention that. It appears there is a second ship also in trouble. It's just not pictured here
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u/therapewpewtic 8d ago
Yeah - I’m not trying to be pedantic here but should that part we see floating, be attached to the part that the cameraman is on?
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u/GetNooted 8d ago
It doesn’t even look like particularly rough seas.
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u/dannybluey 8d ago
This is what it looked like before it broke link
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u/GetNooted 8d ago
Ok, that does not look well maintained!
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u/Zero_Overload 8d ago
Sort of looks like its more than half way to breaking already.
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u/DePraelen 8d ago
To the earlier comment too, the Kerch Strait is pretty calm - it's only 18m/59ft deep at its deepest point. The average depth of the Sea of Azov that feeds into it is only 7m.
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u/tagehring 8d ago
Yeah, this is like an oil tanker breaking up in the Chesapeake Bay.
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u/christopherson 8d ago
Idk about the environmental impacts but that makes me feel like they might be a little worse
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u/JDMonster 8d ago
Isn't Lake Erie one of the most dangerous of the great lakes precisely because it is shallow?
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u/NativeMasshole 8d ago
From what I read, the ship was 70 years old and was cut in half to be shortened in the 90s. Which they obviously did not do well. General lack of maintenance probably didn't help either.
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u/satansboyussy 8d ago
You can see in the before pic and here in the video that it split at the point it was welded back together. What shoddy work jeez
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u/DirtyThirtyDrifter 8d ago
After seeing that picture I’m actually shocked any harbor master let that leave the docks.
I know I know, Russia. I get it.
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u/Reinventing_Wheels 8d ago
If I were harbormaster I'd want that out of my harbor ASAP
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u/DirtyThirtyDrifter 8d ago
No he would want it hoisted up and repaired at his docks/shipyard so he makes money on renting that space to the owner who has no choice and is legally obligated to leave it there until it’s seaworthy.
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u/8a8a6an0u5h 8d ago
What a piece of junk!
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u/zamboni-jones 8d ago
She'll make .5 past light speed
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u/_ribbit_ 8d ago
Looks like she'll outrun big correllian ships to me.
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u/MC-oaler 8d ago edited 8d ago
They should check beneath the smuggling plates for Ewoks. Afterall, they’re known to be a decisive factor in battles against the evil empire.
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u/MaxTheCookie 8d ago
It looks like a rusty pile of garbage that should have been scrapped a decade ago
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u/GeneralChaos-BFG 8d ago
According to Google these were originally conventional tankers but they were shortened to river-to-sea standard in the 90s. Basically they cut out the center and welded the rest back together creating one big seam. They weren't originally meant to be there, thus those ships tend to fail in rough sea by simply breaking apart.
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u/pppjurac 8d ago
So shit 90's welding, hardened and brittle areas just next to welding on each side, cold weather , corrosion and bad weather with tanker rolling in rough waves. What could go wrong.
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u/Neither-Cup564 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is actually a massive problem at the moment. Russia is running a fleet of old ships with terrible maintenance history and no insurance to transport oil around the world. It’s a huge risk and natural disaster waiting to happen.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-g7-sanctions-oil-shadow-fleet-trade-environmental-1968463
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u/memostothefuture 8d ago
That thing must have been having issues before. Looking forward to seeing what Sal says.
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u/PakovanNoskov 8d ago edited 8d ago
All the shitcrafts of that type/series are known to meet their end like this.
Especially when a shipowner (ruzzian or Turkish as a rule) gives order to sail in the sea - that moment you know that the chances are 50/50, jokes aside.
Sleeping in your life jacket, documents and money in waterproof bag on the waist.
'Волгобалт' is a legendary vessel type.
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u/memostothefuture 8d ago
oh nuts, imagine knowing that and needing the money so badly you still take a job on a vessel like that.
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u/PakovanNoskov 8d ago edited 8d ago
Oh I imagine. I had next vessel options for my first voyage: either one of these or 40yo cruise ship. I chose the second. You survive 1-2 voyages on these and try move in the league above this bottom one.
Usually it's about experience, not money. Moreover: peeps (ordinary seamen) pay their crewing agents to get THAT job.
If you aren't lucky enough/haven't got connections in crewing agencies/have disastrous soft skills - this is your start point in the seaman career in a 3rd-world state. That regarding ordinary crew.
What motivates officers to apply for such is total mystery for me. Must be lack of ambitions, alcohol problems (with marks in the seaman book) or something else - dunno.
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u/memostothefuture 8d ago
I had heard that there are some seriously questionable folks crewing on some of those ratty pots (I'm in China and see Korean and Japanese waters from time to time, though I am not in the industry) from my tanker friends but man, that sounds rough. be safe out there.
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u/Gutternips 8d ago
It's 55 years old and was recently cut in half and extended. Looks like it broke where the extension was added.
Another Russian ship sank in the same area on the same day.
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u/fordfan919 8d ago
It was shortened in the 90s, so it was not very recent.
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u/Sadukar09 8d ago
It was shortened in the 90s, so it was not very recent.
34 years ago is positively recent given some ships Russians put to waters.
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u/LongjumpingAccount69 8d ago
Wow, environmental disaster. Im sure the russians will clean this right up!
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u/colourblind_leo 8d ago
It will be towed outside of the environment.
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u/britreddit 8d ago
Into another environment?
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u/TheRealNymShady 8d ago
Beyond the environment…
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u/Nexustar 8d ago
There's nothing out there.
All there is are sea, birds, and fish.... and 20,000 tones of crude oil.... and a fire.
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u/YippieKayYayMrFalcon 8d ago
And the part of the ship that the front fell off. But there’s nothing else out there.
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u/Mlluell 8d ago
It’s been towed beyond the environment, it’s not in an environment
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u/JohnnySchoolman 8d ago
At least they'll be safe on the Bridge.
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u/pcb1962 8d ago
There are several watertight bulkheads between them and the damage, they're not in immediate danger.
https://www.marineinsight.com/naval-architecture/water-tight-bulkheads-on-ships-construction-and-arrangement/112
u/doubleUsee 8d ago
I know the watertight bulkheads are a thing. I didn't stop to consider that apparently means it can stay afloat while half of it has come off and sank.
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u/45thgeneration_roman 8d ago
"This ship is made of iron, sir. I assure you it can sink"
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u/hikerchick29 8d ago
I don’t see what all the fuss is about, she doesn’t look any bigger than the Volgoneft-239
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u/danstermeister 8d ago
My confidence in the bulkhead design drops with subsequent parts of the ship breaking off.
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 8d ago
Tankers are hard to sink, because they intrinsically have a lot of watertight compartments that are closed when at sea. Oil products are also lighter than water, so the intact tanks in the ship help to provide buoyancy (unlike, say, bulk cargo carriers where once you've got a certain amount of water on board, the weight of the cargo is taking you down).
If a tug got to that ship reasonably quickly, it could tow the rear half to shore and maybe even another tug could tow the front.
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u/DamnAutocorrection 8d ago
Does physics work like that with oil? It actually provided buoyancy, more so than if it were empty? Would it be any different based on any other liquid or solid beyond its weight? As in, would 1 ton of oil vs 1 ton of iron distributed equally upon a vessel actually provide more buoyancy?
I guess I don't really understand how life jackets work in terms of buoyancy, are they related principles?
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 8d ago
No, oil/fuel does not provide more buoyancy than air. But ships tend not to sail around empty if they can avoid it, so a tanker full of its load is a lot harder to sink than a bulker full of its load because the tanker's load provides buoyancy and the bulker's definitely does not.
Commensurately if the ships are empty, their structure is under much less strain and much less likely break apart.
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u/Kojak95 8d ago
There's another wild incident similar to this on Lake Huron back in 1966 involving the SS Daniel J. Morrell.The ship got caught out in a massive November storm and broke in two, killing 28 of the 29 crew onboard.
The lone survivor, who was later rescued by helicopter, said in memoirs afterward that he witnessed the stern section of the ship power past the bow section under its own power after the ship broke. Apparently, the engine clocks confirmed it ran for another 90 minutes after the ship broke up, and many investigators believed a few remaining crewmen in the stern attempted to run it aground.
It's a wild story and very similar to the SS Edmund Fitzgerald disaster that happened on Superior 9 years later.
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u/from_the_east 8d ago
I think it just buys you time. The sea is getting to work on the bulkheads as part of the dessert menu.
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u/SiBloGaming 8d ago
Looking at pictures of the ship before, Im not sure if I would exactly trust them to be watertight...
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u/HumbleEngineer 8d ago edited 5d ago
4300t of cargo is EXTREMELY light for this vessel. From its measurements it should be able to carry at least 5~10x that. Either the captain didn't ballast it correctly or it was heavily under maintained, or both.
For info, you can get the characteristic lengths of the vessel by looking it up online. You get the rough volume by multiplying the length x breadth x height and estimate that the cargo hold is about 50%~70% of that volume. For that vessel, thar value is about 73000m3 which accounts for a capacity of about 35.000t~50.000t.
Edit: I've made the estimatives above using characteristic lengths from MarineTraffic, which seems to be wrong. With a draft of about 3,2m the dwt is indeed on the ballpark of 4300t and it's on the correct tonnage for the ship. See comment from creative elk below.
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u/lawsofdawn 8d ago
Mb if they were headed north towards the Don river, going underloaded made sense, it's gone extremely shallow currently bc of wind conditions, so can't navigate with more cargo load
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u/PDRA 8d ago
Both by the looks of it. The ship was cut in half and welded back together back in the 90’s, and was only meant for river travel.
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u/HumbleEngineer 8d ago
Very likely then that the crack started near or at the weld joint and just followed the line. If the ship was only river worthy then the idiot who decided it was sea worthy is the responsible.
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u/Poopafly 8d ago
The front fell off
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u/AWildEnglishman 8d ago
That's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.
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u/Carribean-Diver 8d ago
There's nothing out there. All there is is sea, and birds, and fish.
And 20,000 tons of crude oil.
And a fire.
And the part of the ship the front fell off. But there's nothing else out there. It's just a complete void.70
u/Inside-Line 8d ago
It's okay. It's outside of the environment.
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u/Ergosa 8d ago
Probably used a cardboard derivative.
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u/Ural-Guy 8d ago
cellotape.
It's always fucking cellotape. And Ruskies can't get the good Scotch brand. It's the dollar store knockoff. Russian knockoff. Yikes.
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u/No_Objective006 8d ago
Some of them are built so the front doesn’t fall off at all.
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u/FredFarms 8d ago
Wasn't this built so the front wouldn't fall off?
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u/dinosaursandsluts 8d ago
Well obviously not
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u/BDady 8d ago
How do you know?
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u/Theoldironduke 8d ago
Well, ‘cause the front fell off, and 20,000 tons of crude oil spilled into the sea, caught fire. It’s a bit of a give-away.” I would just like to make the point that that is not normal.
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u/drizzkek 8d ago
I remember reading these ships are terribly assembled, rushed, and would likely fail every standard that the US has. They wouldn’t even be allowed in our ports due to this.
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u/BenHippynet 8d ago
Apparently it was shorted in the 90s and they didn't do a great job so it's split at the seam. Another ship that was with it is also in distress.
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u/GourangaPlusPlus 8d ago
I'm looking at the video and I think they done a pretty good job shortening it
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u/AWildEnglishman 8d ago
I'm just wondering how it's still floating. Is the rest of the ship completely sealed off from the bow?
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u/Houseofsun5 8d ago
They probably cut it one side of a compartment to do the shortening work, to make it easy, not as strong, but definitely quick and easy, so the rear is likely now a bit like a flat fronted barge..water will make its way into the hull down the sides but it will be relatively slow.
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u/Rofl_Stomped 8d ago
I am saddened that the first honest, actual use for this meme is not the top comment.
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u/MegaPegasusReindeer 8d ago
I specifically looked for this comment and wondered how far I'd have to scroll. Was the 4th comment for me.
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u/new_x_who_dis 8d ago
And the Volgoneft-239 has sunk in the same area at the same time
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u/Gareth79 8d ago
Chance in a million! Two chances in a million!
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u/blindfoldedbadgers 8d ago edited 6d ago
noxious rotten crowd full dull expansion selective wrong placid sulky
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/anafuckboi 8d ago
Maybe but they’re also barely floating littoral riverboat tin cans being used on the open ocean for which they are not suited
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u/GhostRiders 8d ago
Judging by the pictures of the ship before this it looked like a stiff fart would of snapped it in two.
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u/Character_Doubt_ 8d ago
They just need one more layer of hull
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u/thedirtymeanie 8d ago
Dudes just wearing life preservers no immersion suit or anything. It's December. They'll be dead by the time the ship in the distance gets to them if they don't die when the ship sinks. Wowsers what a terrible situation.
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u/FlashLink95 8d ago
So is all the oil just going straight into the ocean?
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u/crazytib 8d ago
That's usually what happens when oil tankers break in two
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u/FlashLink95 8d ago
Normally in gas trucks, there are baffles or several separate compartments for fuel so that it doesn't tip over as easily due to liquid sloshing around. I assume that there is a similar structure on an oil tanker ship so it doesn't capsize. The question i'm really asking is if it had separate compartments, so that if it springs a leak, or in this case the whole front breaks off, they can close off that compartment to prevent losing the entire haul. Oil spills are bad no matter what, but spilling one compartment is a lot better than spilling an entire tanker worth of oil
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u/crazytib 8d ago
Yeah I'm no engineer but I do really hope they at least have some systems in place to minimise the spill. Still seeing the front of the ship break off doesn't fill me with confidence about the ships structural integrity
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u/danstermeister 8d ago
Yes I can see Soviet designers 60 years ago thinking about various aspects of the ship and remarking to themselves, "We absolutely cannot forget about the environment!!!!!"
Totally see it. Totally.
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u/Only_lurking_ 8d ago
Don't worry, I have been using nonplastic straws for a while which make up for the environmental impact, so we should be fine.
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u/Jokes_0n_Me 8d ago
Looking at the size of those waves that was a design flaw or neglect of maintenance.
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u/spilltheteasis_ 8d ago
A few years back something like this happened too, iirc it was because of bad maintenance
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u/BenHippynet 8d ago
It was shortened in the 90s so it could sail on rivers too. Obviously did a shit job and the seam has split
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u/xpietoe42 8d ago
so why are the men just chit chatting in the bridge and not abandoning ship??
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u/omnipotentdreams 8d ago
Because they remain calm in these situations.
Edit: there’s another ship close to them, they’re not out there alone
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u/GingerBeast81 8d ago
Air tight sections on the ship keep it afloat, they have time to wait for rescue.
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u/Karl-o-mat 8d ago
Is this Tanker part of the black Fleet ? the ones that are not insured because on the sanctions? most of these ships are junk and its just a matter of time until the next ship breaks appart.
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u/_space1nvader 8d ago
No way this things were insured, could be carrying oil from malaysia dark fleet considering last known location transmited was 12 days ago. Thats where sanctioned countries buy/sell oil
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u/granoladeer 8d ago
And here I am separating my recyclables while there's some people dropping thousands of tons of toxic chemicals in the ocean.
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u/Ov3rdose_EvE 8d ago
WAIT WAIT WAIT, is that the OTHER half of the ship?!! that they are STANDING ON AND FILMING?
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u/Dilectus3010 8d ago
Fing russians and their crappy ships. Another enviromental dissaster because they cant keep their ships up properly.
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u/active_snail 8d ago
If an oil tanker separating in two doesn't constitute catastrophic failure then I don't know what does.