SaintDenis de la Reunion: The crew of an oil tanker stranded near the coast of the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion after Cyclone Batsirai swept the region were rescued and brought ashore Friday, officials said.
“The perilous, very technical and unprecedented operation to rescue” the 11 Indian and Bangladeshi sailors on the Mauritian vessel TrestaStar was completed in “very unfavorable weather conditions”, the French territory’s prefecture said in a statement.
The cyclone is now heading away from the island, Emmanuel Cloppet, regional head of national weather agency Meteo-France, said Thursday, after it caused power cuts, felled trees, and left several injured but with no major damage reported.
But “we are facing the worst weather conditions since the start of the episode”, he warned, with winds of up to 150 kilometers (90 miles) an hour still battering the island. The French minister in charge of overseas territories, Sebastien Lecornu, said the tanker was traveling empty and dismissed any risk of serious maritime pollution.
The French island was placed on red alert as the cyclone approached Wednesday, forcing its 860,000 inhabitants to barricade themselves indoors, with the eye of the storm passing nearly 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the coast early Thursday.
But that alert was lifted Friday at 9 am (0500 GMT), authorities said, while still expressing caution about the dangers posed by the cyclone. The storm was then 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the island, moving at a speed of 12 kilometers per hour.
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