A car­go ves­sel ground­ed off Monos Is­land is said to be leak­ing hy­dro­car­bons in­to the wa­ters of the Ch­aguara­mas Basin, rais­ing fears of en­vi­ron­men­tal dam­age and threats to liveli­hoods.

The Hein (IMO 6702284), car­ry­ing a load of bricks, re­port­ed­ly ran aground ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter its car­go shift­ed, desta­bil­is­ing the ship.

En­vi­ron­men­tal group Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has is­sued an ur­gent call for state agen­cies to ac­ti­vate the Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan. They warned that hy­dro­car­bons are leak­ing from the ship’s bilge in­to sur­round­ing wa­ters.

FFOS said there were no breach­es in the hull, and sal­vage ef­forts are un­der­way to re­float the ship. How­ev­er, they stat­ed that ma­rine ecosys­tems and fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties in the Gulf of Paria re­main at risk.

“We are con­cerned that the weath­er could cause a flip­ping or turn­ing over of this ves­sel,” FFOS Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary Gary Aboud added.

Aboud said he was as­sured by Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram that the nec­es­sary re­sources would be de­ployed to con­tain the spill and as­sist the crew. Rati­ram will li­aise with the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries on the mat­ter.

He said he was told by the ves­sel’s crew that they were head­ing to St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.