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Container ship Rena is seen aground on the Astrolabe Reef on Nov. 17. (Marty Melville/Getty Images)
The beleaguered oil cargo ship Rena that was caught on a reef near northern New Zealand split in two, according to local reports.
The two pieces still remain on the Astrolabe reef where it ran aground, reported the New Zealand Herald. Divers have been commissioned to investigate if the ship is still joined together underwater.
There is an unknown quantity of oil still on board the vessel, the newspaper said.
“We can’t say what’s holding the ship together. What parts of the ship are still connected down below, we can’t assess,” Svitzer salvage master Drew Shannon told the Bay of Plenty Times.
“Two pieces of the ship are still sitting there. What’s connecting the bottom [part of the ship] will be minimal but the two pieces of the ship are sitting there. The ship is still well grounded,” he added.
Workers attempting to remove containers still on board the Rena, which has been stranded since early October, were hampered by bad weather conditions, reported TV New Zealand. The vessel has already leaked around 350 tons of oil and a number of containers have fallen into the sea.
