UN leads £65m plan to stop huge oil spill off Yemen during first ceasefire in six years

Decrepit tanker used for storage at risk of creating a disaster worse than Exxon Valdez in 1989

The UN is to stage a rare donor conference on Wednesday in a bid to raise the $80m (65m) necessary to prevent an ageing oil tanker off the west coast of Yemen exploding and causing an environmental disaster potentially four times worse than the Exxon Valdez spill near Alaska in 1989.

The money is needed to offload more than 1.14m barrels of oil that have been sitting in the decrepit cargo ship, Safer, for more than six years because of an impasse between Houthi groups and the Saudi-backed government over ownership and responsibility.