Sri Lanka braces for environmental disaster as ship sinks

Sad.

Sad.

Indeed. We need to change to green energy. I'm glad you have reversed your previous position of:

The entire "carbon neutral" thing is a scam.

If you can change, anyone can. You, sir, are an inspiration.

“Vile, chemical-carrying oil-heavy ship. Time to ban these treacherous things and use something safer.”

A leaking container which was loosely packed by Chinese supplier origin from China, destinations to Sri Lanka mark as nonhazardous cause the fire. If origin port authority has done their job accordingly, this won't happen.

Forgoing the loss of the cargo, perhaps the ship and area around it should be treated with other chemicals to counteract impending pollution . . . . ?

Oh for heaven's sake. Does every misfortune have to be a 'crisis', a 'disaster', etc? This absurd over-dramatisation just makes journalists look ridiculous and leads to news stories not being taken seriously any more.

The oceans are pretty damned big, and a wee bit of pollution is soon diluted. As for environmental damage, previous accidents - such as the Exxon Valdez, which really was significant - show that nature has stupendous powers of recovery. The minor oil spillage in this case will be forgotten in a couple of years.

Yes, let's try and institute safeguards to prevent this sort of accident happening again, but let's keep things in perspective, too.

Indeed. We need to change to green energy. I'm glad you have reversed your previous position of:

The entire "carbon neutral" thing is a scam.

Nice to hear from my fans!

The "carbon neutral" thing IS a scam. And this shipwreck IS sad. Both can be true. This two have nothing to do with each other. ストップザーconflation

Vile, chemical-carrying oil-heavy ship. Time to ban these treacherous things and use something safer.

Huh? It is, well was, a small container ship sometimes called a "box ship". 186 meters in length and 37,000 tons displacement compared to the container ship Ever Given which is 400 meters long and displaces 220,000 tons. It's not a tanker. Somebody put hazardous chemicals in shipping containers that were loaded on the ship in China. However the chemicals were loaded inside their shipping containers was inadequate and the chemicals started to leak out of the shipping containers into the hold on the ship. There was a chemical reaction that led to a fire and multiple explosions. The crew tried to get the leaking containers unloaded in two ports prior to arriving off Sri Lanka but both ports refused to take them. At that point sailing all the way back to China to unload wasn't an option. Tough spot to put a crew in. The ship itself was only three months old, having been completed and delivered to the owners in February 2021. Over the past few years there has been a spate of container fires on box ships. It is a major problem the international shipping industry is trying to overcome.

Another example of a container ship fire caused by mis-declared cargo.

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/disaster-photos/wwwonlinerws53cc0.jpg

Another container ship fire that Sri Lankan authorities had to deal with.

https://gcaptain.com/large-msc-containership-msc-daniela-suffers-fire-off-sri-lanka/

Maersk Honam on fire in the North Arabian Sea.

http://maritimebulletin.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/mhonam8.jpg

Maersk was never able to fully determine which container started the fire but it was in a hold that had containers with "dangerous goods", a European term for Hazardous Materials.

Do you start to see why the Sri Lankans are getting sick of the steady drumbeat of container ship fires?

The oceans are pretty damned big, and a wee bit of pollution is soon diluted.

No it is not. Even in the 1980s one of the things that amazed me was how much plastic trash had washed up on beaches of the most isolated coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. Everything plastic you can imagine littered the beaches, stuff lost from shipping containers washing overboard or lost in collisions at sea. Add to the mess fishing nets and the glass and plastic float balls used to suspend these nets. The shore of Diego Garcia when I was stationed there in the mid 1980s was covered in plastic trash. Same thing on the other uninhabited atolls in the region. The stuff doesn't disappear. There was an old saying off the California coast that "the solution for pollution is dilution". Half a million barrels of DDT were dumped off the California coast. The leaking DDT is responsible for the high mortality of pelican and bald eagle eggs. The stuff is still out there polluting the waters off LA killing marine life. It doesn't dilute and go away. If you look at the images of the beaches off this wreck you see billions of plastic beads. Birds and marine life eat them and it kills them. Since it doesn't digest the creature that eats it feels perpetually full, doesn't eat and eventually starves to death. That crap is everywhere in the worlds oceans, washed out to sea from land. The stuff gets loose loading and unloading the rail cars and trucks that transport plastic pellets. They wash into creeks during storms and find their way to the ocean via rivers. Find out what the Great Pacific Trash Swirl is and what is doing to the birds on Midway Island. Pollution doesn't just go away or get diluted. Please learn some science.

That is a real disaster. The selection of cargo on board could hardly have been worse.

Express sister

Indeed. We need to change to green energy.

And what exactly does this shipwreck have to do with "green energy"??

How exactly are the Sri Lankan authorities "heading off a disaster " ?

Is somebody going to drop their pants and pee on the fire ?

Since it doesn't digest the creature that eats it feels perpetually full, doesn't eat and eventually starves to death.

I have an idea for an inexpensive, but incredibly effective diet pill...