Dead turtles and waves of plastic show Sri Lankan ship disaster's deep ramifications

As the Sri Lankan navy and coast guard teams fought to douse the flames, the inferno tore through the ship's cargo, releasing a cocktail of hazardous chemicals into the air and sea, prompting authorities to issue a toxic rain alert, and compounding fears of an oil spill.

Fishing communities have been heavily impacted, and locals fear it will be take years for the island to recover from what environmentalists have called the worst disaster in Sri Lanka's history.Sri Lanka is a tourist hotspot. Its unspoiled beaches and turquoise waters not only attract tourists, they are home to abundant sea life, including 28 species of marine mammals, such as blue whales and five species of endangered nesting turtles.

Usually, if a turtle was caught in a net or rough seas, Kapurusinghe said, you'd see cut marks on their fins or broken shells. Often they are bloated from weeks in the water or have bite marks from other predators, he said. While nesting sites are found all over the coast, turtle migration and nesting routes, he said, start at the southern coast and make their way north up Sri Lanka's western coast between March and July. The carcasses were found on beaches around the capital Colombo — up the western shoreline — where the ship was.

Ultimately, no one can be sure what is causing the deaths, said Katuwawala of Pearl Protectors, and a lack of comparable data is adding to the confusion. When Asha de Vos, a marine biologist and founder of Sri Lankan NGO Oceanswell, saw the plastic pollution inundate the shores near her home, she started calling experts to figure out what was going to happen next.

Together, they were quickly able to build a picture of how far and wide the plastic was traveling and plan to conduct monthly surveys on the concentration of plastic in certain areas and how it changes over time. The country's Marine Environmental Protection Authority said in June it had removed 1,000 tons of debris along 200 kilometers of the coastlines, a triumphant, yet incremental portion of the total spillage.Experts warn the pellets will wash up for years to come and become a permanent part of the currents and tides of the world's oceans.

Pattiaratchi said over time the nurdles will grind down to become microplastics, and plastic from the Durban incident is still found on the beaches of Western Australia."If you go to the beach, you will find them if you're looking for them. And that's what will happen to these ones, it will be distributed along the most of the Indian Ocean, northern Indian Ocean countries, if you go looking for them, you will find them for years to come.

Biased of CNN PH for focusing on Singapore-flagged & not on the owner P & I Insurers Charterama....plus ship's Captain. Were there Filipino crew on XPressPearl? 🙄🤔 biasedmedia manipulation influencer influence Singapour SriLanka 🙏❤️🇵🇭 GodBless Philippines

:(

Plastic pellets inside a fish's mouth looks eerily like a person's set of misplaced teeth. I hope they manage to do their necropsies and contamination tests quick, to help resolve the current impact of the situation is giving them.

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