The UN will finally defuse a floating bomb in the Red Sea

on board the will be happy to be out of a job. Anchored since 1988 near Hodeida, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, the tanker was used as a floating oil-storage and export terminal. But since 2015 war has made it impossible to maintain the almost half-century-old ship.A skeleton crew of seven has laboured to keep the thing afloat, and to keep its cargo, 1.1m barrels of oil, from causing an environmental disaster. Rough seas and salt have rusted its single-walled hull. Machines that pump inert gas into storage tanks to prevent a fire stopped working years ago. Officials say it is miraculous that the tanker has survived this long.