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European Space Agency

Press Release

ERS-2 displays slick threatening Swedish coast

6 June 2003
 
A 39 sq km oil slick produced by the sinking of a Chinese freighter
threatened the southern coast of Sweden last week. As the glistening
oil headed landward ESA's ERS-2 satellite used its SAR radar
instrument to image the slick. 
 
Freighter Fu Shan Hau collided with another ship north of the Danish
island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, around local noon on Saturday
31 May. The crew made it off safely but as the ship settled 68 metres
underwater more than 100 tonnes of oil began streaming from its
breached hull, and currents carried the oil towards Sweden.

This 100-km swath ERS-2 SAR image was taken on the evening of Monday
2 June, and shows the oil slick poised ominously close to Sweden's
south coast, on the bottom right of the image.

Unlike a conventional visual picture, SAR images record the relative
roughness of different surfaces. This makes them especially useful
for charting oil spills - a capability well demonstrated during the
much larger Galicia oil spill off Spain last autumn - because oil has
a smoother surface than water, and so shows up blacker. On land it
can also be seen how the SAR distinguishes between different
vegetation types across Swedish farmland.

Local authorities responded quickly to the threat, and six oil
containment ships from Denmark, Sweden and Germany succeeded in
skimming much of the oil up before it reached the coast. Hundreds of
people helped clear up what oil did make it ashore.

The sunken freighter poses no threat to shipping - upwards of 160 000
craft use the Danish straits annually - but as well as its cargo of
66 000 tons of fertiliser, the ship retains another 1600 tons of oil
aboard which might still leak out. 

ESA plans to carry out follow up imaging of the area starting next
Wednesday 11 June, using Envisat's ASAR instrument as well as ERS-2.
These images will be placed at the disposal of civil protection
authorities if needed.

For more information on the current and upcoming activities of ESA's
Earth Observation satellites, go to http://earth.esa.int/ew/planning

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