Six and a half decades after Mongla Port's establishment, the authorities have recently decided to develop capacity for oil spill management.

The port, which has been operative since 1950, will get logistics required for such management, said its chairman, Commodore Habibur Rahman Bhuiyan, yesterday.

He added that other development projects at one of the country's oldest seaports were underway.

The decision came against the backdrop of oil spill from a sunken tanker, Southern Star-7, in the Shela and Poshur rivers along the Sundarbans.

Hit by a cargo vessel, the tanker carrying furnace oil went down into the Shela river on Tuesday. Since then oil has spread over 50 km in the waters through the world's largest mangrove forest, putting its biodiversity at risk.

Although similar accidents occurred in the forest in the past, the port authority did not take any step to reduce the risk facing its ecological balance.

When asked why, Chairman Habibur avoided giving a direct answer. He said the port had been non-functional between 2001 and 2008. The authority in 2008 resumed its operation and took up a number of development projects.

According to a draft of the National Marine Policy Contingency Plan written in 2000, Mongla Port, located 3 km North of the Sundarbans, should have the logistics to deal with oil spill and other environmental disasters.

The port authorities, however, have never been found to have acted in line with the draft, said environment department sources.

Forest officials said an oil tanker sank in the Shela river in 1994, causing harm to the biodiversity of the forest.

In 2000, a foreign ship dumped engine oil in the Poshur river near Mongla Port, and another tanker capsized in the Bishkhali river in 2012.