The X-Press Pearl's “voyage data recorder” or VDR, the “black box” of a boat, has been recovered.
He was on board this freighter which burned for thirteen days before partially sinking off Colombo.
"The navy helped technicians recover the VDR from the bridge, which is still over the sea," navy spokesman Indika de Silva told AFP.
The technical study of the VDR data should allow investigators to know exactly the procedures and orders on board the boat before its accident. The only downside: a VDR is configured to keep data for twelve hours, as well as three backups made voluntarily by the crew.
The MV X-Press Pearl, inaugurated four months ago, registered in Singapore, began to sink on Wednesday, after being the victim of a fire that lasted 13 days, off the capital.
The ship was at anchor when on May 20 the fire broke out on board after an explosion.
Its towing was definitively interrupted on Wednesday: specialists from a Dutch company had received a mission to remove it from the coast two days earlier.
The swell was already pouring on the coast 25 tons of nitric acid and enormous quantities of plastics transported by the cargo ship.
Millions of plastic pellets on the beaches
According to the Center for Environmental Justice (CEJ), an association, the crew was aware of an acid leak - which ended up causing the fire - as early as May 11, long before entering the waters. Sri Lankan territories. An investigation has been launched in Sri Lanka. The captain and his chief engineer - two Russians - were questioned, and their passports were seized. Singapore has also initiated its own investigations.
The island's tourist beaches and surrounding waters were submerged in millions of plastic pellets that the freighter was carrying, leading to a ban on fishing on May 22.
In Lellama, a fishing town north of Colombo, more than 100,000 people depend in part or in full on the approximately 2,000 boats that normally operate there.
“We are told not to go to sea: it caused a lot of problems.
The fishermen are very distraught, ”Antony Sebastian, a 67-year-old fisherman, told Reuters.
80 km of Sri Lankan coastline have been soiled.
Due to the sea currents, the plastic pellets are expected to travel to Indonesia and Somalia.
VIDEO.
Sri Lanka: a tide of plastic on the beaches after the fire of a container ship
