(Reuters) – A district in Russia’s Sakhalin region has been put on high alert after a cargo ship ran aground off the southwest coast of the Sakhalin Island, the governor of the region in Russia’s Far East said early on Sunday.
“No fuel spillage was recorded, there is no threat to the life and health of the crew,” the governor, Valery Limarenko, said on the Telegram messaging app.
The ship was stranded in the shallow waters off Sakhalin’s Nevelsky district, Limarenko said. Russia’s TASS news agency said it was a foreign cargo ship.
“The situation requires prompt control and readiness for any scenario. At my request, a high alert regime has been introduced in the (Nevelsky) district,” Limarenko said.
The Sakhalin region in Russia’s Far East comprises of the Sakhalin Island and the chain of the Kuril Islands.
Soviet troops took control of the four islands off Japan’s Hokkaido – known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories – at the end of World War Two and they have remained in Moscow’s hands since. The dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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