Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took to the airwaves on Monday morning nearly a week after the sinking of a small oil tanker west of the greater Athens area has blackened the waters and beaches in the Saronic Gulf, the body of water around which half of the country's population lives.
The leftist premier attempted to deflect harsh criticism that initial foot-dragging by the relevant shipping ministry and state services, primarily the coast guard, failed to contain the fuel oil spill. The result was oil slicks extending dozens of nautical miles southeast, along what's increasingly being bill as the "Athenian Riviera".
Tsipras' comments were framed with the Cabinet room as the backdrop, shortly before he was set to chair a high-level meeting on cleaning up the mess.
He said the cleanup effort was a "difficult prospect ... however, all of the relevant bodies and available means have been mobilized."
The Greek PM said his leftist-rightist coalition government will "not act on the basis of short-lived reactions, but on the basis of dealing with the problem in a meaningful manner ... We must speak with absolute sincerity and not allow ourselves to be influenced by the mass media's communication torrent."
In earlier statements to an Athens radio station, a ruling SYRIZA party MP and the former shipping minister, Thodoris Dritsas said the ill-fated tanker that sank in the early morning hours of Sunday, Sept. 10, carried some 2,500 tons of mazut fuel oil and around 300 tons of a lighter fuel.
The cargo was loaded from the Hellenic Petroleum refinery.
The Agia Zoni II went down under undetermined circumstances while anchored just off the island of Salamina, in a sea region bordering Greece's most industrialized districts. Two crew-members were aboard the vessel at the time, the skipper and the chief engineer.
Initial estimates said 300 to 500 tons of fuel oil spilled into the waters of the Saronic Gulf, although state services over the past few days pointed to 800 tons as having been mopped up.
Some of the Athens area's best known beaches have been swamped with tar-like oil patches, with some reports saying the oil spill has reached as far south as the Lagonissi resort.
