A cargo ship carrying tonnes of toxic chemicals and plastic is sinking off Sri Lanka’s west coast, threatening to spill oil into the surrounding waters.
Conservationists have described it as one of Sri Lanka’s worst environmental disasters after plastic pellets from the Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl washed up on shore.
The ship had been on fire since May 20 before the blaze was extinguished.
Rescue teams had been trying to tow the ship out to the deep sea when it began to sink off Sri Lanka’s main port of Colombo.
The disaster threatens the country’s fishing and tourism industry.
Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Bellis reports.
– Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
– Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
– Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
– Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/
#SriLanka #MVXPressPearl #PlasticPellets
Is there no way to totally stop fire on ship?
Because as i know Indian and Sri Lankan Navy ships went to fight the fire but the ship still been burning and sink spreading pollution.
Lol, and what agenda is this? 😂
Indian sailors strike again.
@oa prime Ship was headed to Singapore from an Indian port. Loading of containers with Nitric Acid was done in the Indian port. The loading procedure needs to be investigated, as it was after the ship sailed from the Indian port that the Nitric Acid leak was discovered.
@Ranil Abeyasinghe I think so but the container is not India’s
Xhina has all but trawled it out anyway.
Singaporean-owned ship and (highly dangerous)cargo dooh. You sinophobes and your conspiracy theories smh…
@Thomas Scream are u a filthy small eyed wumao too 😂🤣😂
@Manila Vanilla Nah, just a third party who’s been to China, and is disgusted by the irrationality, ignorance and in some cases(like yours) sheer racism of war hawks like yourself. Notice how you couldn’t come up with a counterargument to a factual refutation of the original comment.
@Thomas Scream me no speak engrish. U say François. Wumao
@Thomas Scream seems like the US has created the next war with China already
Built in 2021 … by the Chinese …
That’s a bit of a prejudiced view. The ship builders couldn’t matter less here. A ship of immaculate build quality would sink with the right cocktail of reactive chemicals on board, and a subsequent leak, explosion, fire and acid damage, as was the case here. Whatever/whoever caused the container leak is more at fault here, to the extent that an accident is anyone’s fault.
Sabotage by India
@Aditya Chauhan yes the the ship did belong to Singapore, but sabotage by India
@Aditya Chauhan but India is part of this incident, please read the full article about this incident
It was literally a Singaporean ship, not everything is about China
I heard an initial report about unregistered cargo? is that what caught fire?
Prayer for Sri Lanka. Let’s hope they can limit the environmental impact.
L
@Mohammed Sadiq 🖕
You think prayer will help, sorry to burst you bubble but prayer never make any i pack on environment, never! Reality does, fantasy like religion makes no impact, sorry.
oo ‘hopes’ and ‘prayers’ 2 nothings for the price of 1
@Hans Bjorkman atheist cringe
Most dangerous creation: human being
Stop wearing clothes….lets start eco friendly dress like taarzan
Caring sharing. Don’t just say human. It is certain humans that is poluting the world, and for what? More and more money to do what? Distroy more and more!
Some human beings are bad. But not all…Do you see the phone you’re using? The internet, the clothes you’re wearing, your haircut, the house you’re living in, the restaurants near you, the shopping malls, etc. Etc. Made by human beings! As the creator gave them the mind and sense.
Look, I’m not looking for a debate here and atheists here can STHU and go away, these people have trapped themselves in an ocean of doubt and absurdity. Nothing we will gain by getting vague statements from atheists. They are clueless and we’re gonna get clues from them!?
@Caring Sharing Without chemicals modern life is not possible.
Greedy humans
Good News for Buddhist Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 the ship 🚢 cremated itself ✅
David 😁
👍
Why You Liked It??
deliberately: by yndia
It is Singapore conpany not indian
Honestly… i guarantee you, the government don’t give a fk. They’re probably thinking of how to pocket some of the clean up money.
WHY IS SOLDIERS CLEANING????
That’s no their job. You need professional fast cleaners. Should’ve been there day 1. Should’ve had a barricade around it.
It is Singapore ship not indian don’t be happy pakistani 😂😂
This is confusing someone wants to stir trouble in Asian?
Housewarming gift to Sri Lanka from China port city 😂🤣😂🤣
So why is the RSS in power?
@Aditya Chauhan China will always be ahead
@Aditya Chauhan People worshipping cows shouldn’t despise other religions
@Aditya Chauhan RSS is only good at bothering minorities. India deserves better
@Aditya Chauhan Try respecting other people’s religion as well.
Everyone talks about the owners of the ship, but no one about how the ship officials asked for help in the ports in India, and previously in *UAE*, as they had alreadt damage, but got rejected by both countries. Curious that no press mentions that
@Ranil Abeyasinghe Peace bro
BTW how is covid situation there now ?
@Facts, Figures and Fun Not good. Much community spread of the virus. We are in an indefinite lockdown here. Also we have a severe shortage of vaccines for now, but as months pass we expect to bring more stocks down. What about you?
@Ranil Abeyasinghe Here Covid cases are falling, Thank god. Still we are in lockdowns.
Also there is shortage of Vaccines here too . . .
@Facts, Figures and Fun I see, most places in our region appear to be suffering from large outbreaks now. Need to take every precaution possible. Stay safe.
@Ranil Abeyasinghe Stay safe, Don’t take covid Lightly 😊
You might have saw what happened in India during peak .
Take care ❤️
If sri lanka wins the legal action, I pray that the money be used to the public and the restoration of the damage instead of the pockets of politicians.
Everytime there’s infrastructure bills to pay for middle class or workers public services it gets taken out of the people’s cash reserves then yoinked into private equity by the same monopolies and third parties that operate and lobby or by some arbitrary system created by the fed. Surely they’ll take responsibility and not cover everything up with executive confidentiality and consultants.
Nice wish but it’s a third world country and that is not the way things turn out. Third world countries worst enemies are always their own politicians that live in luxury. Sri Lanka is extremely corrupt and lawless. I visited the home of a high ranking lawyer in Colombo once to look at his car collection and was invited back to see more, it’s was no chance of that, he was executed just a few days later.
Surely you’re on crack 😂😂
@Shads _ if crack makes people wake tf up 🙈🙉🙊
Maybe we need to stop shipping volatile materials overseas and do so by air.
@James Hecht Its possible but entirely cost prohibitive. And would end up causing more pollution as the numbers of aircraft needed would be mind boggling.
Then if a disaster happened in air it would be 100 times worse
@Bat man it’s better in air ,the ocean won’t get polluted and kill those creatures
@BTS x Blink but if an aircraft gets badly damaged the disaster will be 10 times worse
.it’s better if its debris falls on land,u can clean it easily. but in case of ocean,it’s almost impossible to clear those debris
It took so long for Sri Lanka to recover from the tsunami. Now this.
4/21 attack in 2019
It’s Karma
It isn’t as bad as the tsunami which killed 1000s
@rajandran suppiah karma for what? Are you salty your ltte lost the war?
Now’s the time to go green. This would never happen in ancient times where life was eco-friendly. We call ourselves an advanced civilization, yet unable to live without chemicals or put out a conflagration. Sad!
What your solution….we go back to stone age ….without a solution don’t talk wishes
Going green is since it’s a sustainable eco-friendly living
Still also,no to green populism
@RI.A4HR Is that why the planet is greening in many places? Humans have made enormous advances in environmental protections and we continue to improve. Stop letting media dictate your thought process.
@Tapas Rout no need for stone age, we know what to do but greed is still stronger than sanity
Polluting the sea,😠 crazy people. We here from the South Pacific Ocean are very angry. This will affect the whole ocean. Thank you humans for killing our own home, earth. 😢
Arch Bishop allows it or not all gone in to sea
May be he can covert more Fisher men to christianity by helping them with some money
So sad
Itz very hard for us to recover with covid 19…
There will be no losses to multinational companies…..it is only loss to common man
Al Jazeera news channel should also be broadcast in Hindi and Urdu language.
When you ally with india Allah punishes
Sri Lanka has been more allies with Pakistan than ever with India
# Allah is a Lier GOD
Who is Allah? 3rd world still believes in gods, right?
@Loy71 believe is lie.why allah cant save people ?
Headlines says it’s sank but report says it’s still afloat 🤔
🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱💪💪🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱💪💪🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱💪💪🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
It is hard to give thumbs up to bad news
Lets just fk this whole planet for capitalism!
Pellets not pallets for those who may be wondering. Aussie speak!!
Ban plastic
oh no dude what the f
If the ship was sailing from India to Singapore, why was it heading to Colombo port? Was it a schedule stop, or was it because they had found a container leaking nitric acid & needed help.
Yet the ships previous two ports, Hazira India & Hamad Qatar, had refused permission for the ship to return citing lack of facilities to deal with the leaking container. If the leaking acid was the cause of the fire then surely these two ports have questions to answer in not helping a ship in trouble.
The crew contacted Sri Lanka for distress and the government helped them, it wasn’t suppose to come here
How can this incident ever happen so frequently? Chemical can’t sell, just set off fire and claim the insurance big money? This reckless accident had cost massive destruction to the environment and to other countries.
Please sue that corporate company who handling this dangerous material. A threat to the environment lawsuit, a threat to marine life lawsuit, and huge massive work for that country shore lawsuit.
Before we talk about expanding free trade, we need to ensure we have the infrastructure to support an expansion of free trade. That includes the handling of hazardous cargo like this at ports. This ship was denied entry into Indian and Qatari ports, citing a lack of technical expertise to handle the dangerous cargo on board. A disaster like this could have been prevented if due care was provided into how the cargo was loaded and contingent measures in case of emergencies.
Stupid uneducated government of Sri Lanka they don’t have a proper plan to deal with it
@Bat man 🤣🤣 am at Colombo am a Sri lankan but I hate this government
@Mohamed Ifnaz oh ok that’s your opinion so, vote for your for favourite next time then
@Bat man no used to vote everyone are same they don’t take care public and I am shame to living in Sri Lanka
@Mohamed Ifnaz then leave here and go to UK and beg to be a part of white people, people like you only know how to complain and complain just shut up man
@Bat man get lost without saying anything like mad
I’m sure money will solve the problem, just dump cash into the ocean and tell it to repair itself, right?
Money will get the the equipment needed for repair and compensate fishermen
good job, corporation. while we fighting ourselves for racial and social conflicts caused by the consequences of human and environmental exploitation perpetuated by the companies, while we are committed to fighting a timed virus that monopolizes and distracts attention from what should worry us, they do what they want undisturbed , without anyone protesting for the environmental disaster in siberia (tons of fuel dispersed and forests burned in the last 2 months) amazon fires, australia fires, mauritius oil disaster, whale sanctuary disaster in italy, bagjan disaster in india and many others only in the recent months, as soon as there is the slightest news of a disaster, incredibly the general interest is diverted to something more comfortable for them. Do you really believe you are fighting on the right side when you pour anger on the enemies that are provided to you by the media? you go home convinced that you have fought for freedom when you play the game of those who took it away from you forever without you even noticing.
So go out and shout you rage and frustration agaist some cop, or try to fight the illusion of the white privilege, while the real Masters of ourselves are watching giving us something to want or something to hate, like you Give your dog something to chew.
You shouldn’t order freight ships at alibaba. This ship was 6 months old
Chinese quality
if Chinese quality is so bad, why everyone let them manufacture everything and buy and invest in western companies? Now it’s too late… they’re on the brink of being the new world’s superpower.
The crew was hindu?
Compensation will go to Rajapakses pockets
There is no accountability for these ships it’s such a joke.
Made in China.
Rich companies and rich people will destroy the planet earth.
First the Suez Canal then a massive tanker stricken by fire, can no one see the similarities of a planned agenda?
They are banning the hijab in future sri Lanka will face more disasters.
Find the owners and execute them.
Oil floats, just build a buoy barrier around the ship and scoop.
I Want To Be Burried In The Yard Of The SaadBinAbiWaqas In China After My Death, Can You Help Me For This ?
Captain planet come save us!
Singapore flag ship with flags of convenience never passed inspection and should not be hauling hazardous chemicals
The oil spill is minor compared to the chemicals they were carrying
Why don’t they just pump the oil into tankers before it gets below the water line 🤔🙄🤯
No one can reach to the ship, in this moment , it’s dangerous
this is why im going to mars
Can’t Helicopters airlift remaining Oil containers with Their Big Clamps.
Would’ve been great if it happened in Singapore
Compensation is not the issue. This is an ecological disaster. Mankind is faced with pandemic on land, and if a virus develops in the sea, causing marine life to die it will be the end of us all.
God will curce this gawerment