Sri Lanka has extended the shoreline cleaning in its western coastline for six months in the aftermath of the fire aboard a Singapore-flagged container ship that was carrying tonnes of hazardous chemicals and sank off the country’s coast two months back, marine authorities said.
MV X-Press Pearl was carrying 1,486 containers of chemicals and cargo when it went up in flames on May 21 near the Colombo Port.
The Sri Lankan Navy, Air Force and the Indian Coast Guard jointly doused the fire in an operation that took days. However, the ship sank off Colombo’s coast on June 17.
Sri Lanka’s marine pollution prevention authorities have been made to extend shoreline cleaning for next six months.
“We have been doing shoreline cleaning for over 40 days now. This will now have to be extended by at least six more months,” Dharshani Lahandapura, the head of the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) told reporters.
She said already some 2,200 metric tonnes of waste material have been collected from the ship as it sank early June about nine nautical miles off the Colombo port.
“We have 45 container loads of waste already,” she said, adding that recent high speed winds and storms experienced in the seas had resulted in more waste being washed.
The Indian Navy had deployed INS Sarvekshak upon a formal request from Sri Lanka to carry out a survey of the affected area to ensure the safety of navigation in the area.
“That survey has been able to gather information on the containers that have fallen and are now lying in the sea. But we do not know the contents of them,” Lahandapura said.
The MV X-Press Pearl was reportedly carrying 1,486 containers out of which large numbers fell into the sea before the fire was doused.
The release of toxic waste from the ship due to fire was regarded as the worst marine ecological disaster in Sri Lanka where the environmentalists have reported the deaths of at least 20 dolphins, 4 whales and 176 turtles.
The ship owners’ insurance have already settled an interim claim of compensation from the Sri Lankan government.
PTI
-Agencies
