Iran has filed a 50-billion rial law suit against a Russian shipping company for damages caused to the country’s fishing industry when a container on board the Sakharov cargo ship exploded in the Iranian territorial waters, off Lavan in the Persian Gulf, on July 4, 1993, reported Mokhtar Kalantari, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and transportation
According to the Tehran Times, the force of the explosion caused the chemicals contained inside the container to leak into the sea, killing fish and inflicting more than 34.5 billion rials in losses to Iranian fisheries.
Kalantari also noted that the Iranian Department of the Environment (IDOE) is seeking more than one million dollars in compensation for the damage to the environment, and the Ports and Shipping Organization has made a claim of one million dollars for the costs it incurred in removing the debris of the Russian ship and its containers from the seabed. — (Albawaba-MEBG)
