Sri Lanka faces an unprecedented marine pollution crisis

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka faces an unprecedented pollution crisis as waves of plastic waste from a burning container ship hit the coast and threaten to devastate the local environment, a top environment official warned.

Thousands of navy ratings using mechanical diggers scooped tonnes of tiny plastic granules on the beaches that had come from the Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl that has been smoldering on the horizon for 10 days, AFP reported.

Sri Lanka’s Marine Protection Authority (MEPA) said the microplastic pollution could cause years of ecological damage to the Indian Ocean island.

“This is probably the worst beach pollution in our history,” MEPA chairman Dharshani Lahandapura said.

The tiny polyethylene pellets threaten tourism beaches and fish-breeding in shallow waters.

Fishing has been banned along an 80-km stretch of coast near the ship that has been burning for 10 days despite an international firefighting operation.

“There is smoke and intermittent flames seen from the ship,” navy spokesman Captain Indika de Silva told AFP.

Orange-colored plastic booms were set up in case oil leaks from the crippled ship reaches the Negombo lagoon that is famed for its crabs and jumbo prawns.

Thousands of small boats were beached at Negombo Saturday because of the fishing ban.

Naval rating Manjula Dulanjala said his team had almost cleared the beach on Friday evening, but were shocked to find it covered again the following morning.

“This is like the coronavirus. No end in sight. We removed all the plastic yesterday, only to see more of it dumped by the waves overnight,” he said.

The pellets and waste were packed into green and white polythene sacks and taken away by trucks.

An officer leading another team said that in certain parts of the beach the microplastics and charred debris was 60cm deep.
Local fisherman Peter Fernando, 68, said he had never seen such destruction.

The December 2004 Asian tsunami devastated much of the island’s coastline and killed an estimated 31,000 people, but only damaged coastal infrastructure.

According to AFP, Roman Catholic priest Sujeewa Athukorale said most of his parishioners were fishermen who risked becoming destitute.