Sri Lankan beaches are crumbling under tons of plastic dumped in the sea after the fire of the MV X-Press Pearl, a container ship registered in Singapore.
According to the authorities, the ship was carrying 28 containers full of these polyethylene granules, intended for the packaging industry, eight of which fell into the water.
And cleaning the beaches polluted by these tons of granules mixed with burnt oil and other debris washed up by the sea from the ship is a titanic job.
"It is probably the most important pollution of beaches in our history," said Dharshani Lahandapura, president of the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA).
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Sri Lanka: container ship in flames off coast
But another disaster could make the situation even worse. The fire weakened the structure of the 186m-long ship which could break and drain of its oil, said Sri Lanka's Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA). The ship, whose 186 m long structure was weakened by the fire, carries, in addition to the fuel in its tank, 278 t of bunker fuel and 50 t of marine diesel. Authorities have banned fishing in an 80 km long area around the MV X-Press Pearl. Located 40 km north of the capital, Negombo, a fishing region, is threatened by a potential oil spill and its beach, the country's tourist hotspot, is now closed to the public.