UN seeks $80 million to prevent tanker disaster in Red Sea

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations is urging donor nations to provide $80 million for an emergency operation to remove a million barrels of crude oil from a tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen since 1988 that could explode or leak causing a major environmental disaster in the Red Sea and beyond. David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, made the appeal Friday. He said the FSO Safer tanker is “a time bomb” because a major oil spill “would unleash a massive ecological and humanitarian catastrophe centered on a country already decimated by more than seven years of war.”