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After X-Press Pearl, Sri Lanka targets another shipping line over marine pollution
- Nurdles washed ashore from MSC ELSA 3 that caught fire off Kerala still found in northern coastal line
Colombo, July 30 (Daily Mirror) - In the wake of the landmark judgement delivered by the Supreme Court ordering $ 1 billion as interim compensation over the X-Press Pearl disaster, the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) of Sri Lanka, along with other stakeholders, initiated action to claim similar payments over the disaster being caused by the Liberia-flagged container ship MSC ELSA 3 that caught fire off Kerala, India recently, Daily Mirror learns.
The sinking of this ship off the Kochi coast in Kerala on May 25, has triggered an environmental crisis along the Kerala and Tamil Nadu coast in India and the northern coastal belt of Sri Lanka because it spilled plastic nurdles — tiny pellets used in plastic manufacturing.
MEPA Chairman Samantha Gunasekara told Daily Mirror that the Sri Lankan authorities continue to collect nurdles washed ashore from the ill-fated ship since then. He said his office, along with the representatives of the shipping company concerned, its local agent and the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), held a meeting recently to discuss action to be taken in making insurance claims for the damage caused to the Sri Lankan marine environment from this disaster.
Plastic pellets have been found washed ashore in the areas such as Jaffna, Kalpitiya and Delft. We keep collecting them for the assessment of environmental damage for insurance claim to be made,” he said.
He ruled out the discovery of any oil-slick because of this accident in the recent past.
“We work according to a transparent criterion to assess the damage. We will do it in a transparent, accountable manner,” he said.
Asked about the exact amount of pellets collected so far, he said it could not be divulged at the moment.
“We keep continuing to collect nurdles on a daily basis,” he said.
For Sri Lanka, the X-Press Pearl disaster in 2021 offered a precedent for the potential impacts of the MSC ELSA 3 spill. After that container ship caught fire and sank 18 km off Colombo in 2021, it released 1,680 tonnes of nurdles, leading to over 600 beached turtles, damaged fishing nets, and nurdles found in fish stomachs, gills, and mouths.
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