A Chinese ship was caught looting the area in which two former British warships, HMSPrince of Wales and HMS Repulse, are located, sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy off Malaya in 1941, during World War II, the Opex360 website reported. The Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times also said that the case would be analyzed by the "Department of National Heritage", and that the British High Commission in Kuala Lampur has been notified.
Satellite images published by The Maritime Observatory, a British organization specializing in monitoring oceans and ships, the Chuan Hong 68, owned by the Fujian Ya Rui Marine, can be seen implementing a grab dredge, used to recover steel. The Chinese ship has "also generated in its wake an oil slick 2.5kilometers long," writes on Twitter The Maritime Observatory.
" READ ALSO "Five years prisoner of a wreck": the terrible odyssey of abandoned ships
Already seen looting
According to Opex360, the Chuan Hong 68 had already been boarded by Malaysia for "looting" three wrecks of a Japanese warship. These removals come at a time when China claims almost the entire South China Sea, ignoring the claims of its neighbors, such as Vietnam or Malaysia. Sunken warships are nevertheless considered burials, protected, in particular, by a UNESCO convention on underwater cultural heritage. They cannot be claimed by any country other than the one whose flag they flew.