Black Sea Exits Closed to Ship With Reported Radioactive Cargo

The West German ship Petersberg has cruised the Black Sea for four weeks searching for a port after Romania warned neighboring states that the ship carried highly radioactive cargo, the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Sunday.

The newspaper said it had learned in Bucharest that diplomats of at least four nations were attempting to resolve the dilemma.

The paper said the ship’s manifest described the cargo as slightly contaminated building rubble. West German shipping sources said the rubble came from a demolished chemical plant.

The vessel was loaded in Vienna for shipment through the Danube to the Romanian river port of Sulina, but authorities there would not let it dock and warned other Black Sea nations.

The Petersberg sailed on to the Dardanelles, but Turkish officials turned it back into the Black Sea.

There it has remained virtually imprisoned, since Romania refused to allow it to return via the Danube to Vienna, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Ministry in Bonn declined to comment on the grounds that the matter was one for the Transport Ministry, whose officials were not immediately available.