Two Russian oil tankers have been badly damaged in the Black Sea, causing an oil spill, authorities in Russia have said.

Footage released by Russia's Southern Transport Prosecutor's Office showed the bow of one tanker completely broken off, with streaks of oil visible in the water.

Both tankers are believed to have drifted before running aground offshore. At least one crew member was reportedly killed.

The incident took place in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from Crimea - the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

President Biden will travel to East Palestine on Feb. 16, a little more than a year a since the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals near the town.

“[T]he President will travel to East Palestine, Ohio to discuss how the Administration is continuing to work with state and local officials to hold Norfolk Southern accountable and support the community as it moves forward,” the White House said in an advisory Saturday.

Contaminated soil from the site around the East Palestine train wreck in Ohio is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears that the chemicals being removed from the ground will be redistributed across the region.

The federal government has ordered a temporary halt to the shipment of contaminated waste from the site of the train derailment in eastern Ohio that has prompted environmental and public health concerns.

Federal authorities paused shipments of waste out of East Palestine, Ohio, on Saturday. Norfolk Southern, the company that owns the train that derailed, had been responsible for relocating the waste. But other states raised concerns last week that they weren’t warned about receiving the waste, and the Environmental Protection Agency stepped in. 

Mike DeWine, the Ohio governor, recently lamented the toll taken on the residents of East Palestine after the toxic train derailment there, saying “no other community should have to go through this”.

Former President Trump plans to visit the town of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment led to the release of toxic chemicals, next week. 

Trump posted on Truth Social in response to a report that he was planning to make the trip that the residents of East Palestine are “Great people who need help, NOW!” 

The 2024 presidential candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on Twitter that his father will visit the town. 

The recent train derailment and hazardous chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, may be due partly to a mistake in federal Department of Transportation guidelines.

According to officials, the train's cargo was mislabeled and lacked the "high hazardous waste" warning toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride are supposed to carry.

Five days after a train carrying vinyl chloride derailed and exploded near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, crews ignited a controlled burn of toxic chemicals to prevent a much more dangerous explosion.

Thousands in East Palestine, a town of about 5,000 people, evacuated, and officials warned the controlled burn would create a phosgene and hydrogen chloride plume across the region. Phosgene is a highly toxic gas that can cause vomiting and breathing trouble, and was used as a weapon in the first world war.

A number of East Palestine residents have reached out to consumer advocate Erin Brockovich with environmental concerns following the Ohio train derailment, she said in an interview with NewsNation.

Brockovich told NewsNation she’s received at least 100 emails about Ohio so far, with some of the residents telling her the fish in local bodies of water are dying.