X-Press-Perl Pebble Tracker - Lets help to recover our Ocean

[ravindus]

19th of May was a fateful day for Sri Lanka. A fire began in a container ship very close to Colombo Port. The ship crew was unable to put the fire off, hence Port and SL Navy firefighter crafts call for assist. However, the ship has been carrying dangerous highly flammable chemical cargos(25+ tons of nitric(HNO3) and other acidic compounds). Therefore it was a very risky situation. Ship Captain and the crew were safely evacuated from the ship. Firefighters from Sri Lanka port, Sri Lankan Navy, and Indian Navy fought a battle to defeat growing fire but that was too much of an ask due to extreme wind conditions and rough sea.

Wind feed the fire while chemicals within the ship made it exponentially powerful by every minute. The ship began to lean to a side due to wind and imbalance. Burning containers began to fall into the sea. The fire took over the whole ship. Recovery of anything onboard become a mere dream. The ship was at the risk of breaking into two. However brave firefighters finally able to tame the fire after days of struggle and put it off.

The Environmental Catastrophe

The fire was over. However, it was just the beginning of a horrific environmental disaster. The ship was carrying chemicals and billions of plastic pebbles (which used to make plastic goods). Those have been fallen to sea.

Millions of burnt/unburnt plastic pebbles started to wash into beaches around Sri Lanka.

Dead sea creatures started to wash into beaches. Some have exposed to chemicals and many others have eaten plastic pebbles mistaken for food. Dolphins, Turtles, and various other fish types were among those.

So many other cargo debris also washed into shore. Those were exposed harmful to chemicals. Therefore people who touched them who tried to clean the beach without proper safety gear got sick.

There are millions or billions of plastic pebbles(More than 3billion were onboard) still floating in the sea. They are bound to make more and more harm,

Thousands of liters of acidic compounds mixed with the sea have increased the acidity level in the seawater in the area. It will destroy the corals and coral-based marine life. This damage is not yet visible to us.

So far 38 Dolphin deaths and 41 Turtle deaths have been reported and it is increasing by the day. According to the researchers, only 10% of the actual corpses washed to the shore. That means the actual death count so far should be multiplied by 10.

Now the fire is not there but the ship has begun to sink due to a water leak. Now we are facing the risk of leaking the oil to the sea. Since the ship is in a very unstable condition it is almost impossible to safely remove the oil from the oil tanks inside. If there is an oil spill then that will be the end of the west coast of Sri Lanka.

This Google Mymap(public) has been to track the impacted beaches and see how to ship debris / plastic pebbles that will travel by sea current around the country and maybe around the world. Made it a public map so others could contribute and make this a growing evolving map. This will help to assess the impact, movement of debris and help to manage to track the cleaning projects.

We have shared this map with people who are involved with the ocean conservation cleaning project. Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Sri Lanka is under a Covid lockdown and we can’t actively participate in the cleaning and conservation projects as yet. As scuba divers me and my local guide partner @kasunaaa love our sea and marine life. So we discussed what we can do as local guides during this troubled period. So until we are able to go out we thought decided to use the mapping knowledge we gained through the local guide program and collate and map the pollution information.

I invite all Sri Lanka local guides to collaborate and contribute to this my map. This is a public map and you all are welcome to contribute. Please add the locations where pebbles, debris are stacking, Where marine life is impacted. Use the description feature to describe any imprtant facts.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1ipn5AUdu6e99WgTwnB0zTA7skQzU8xWt&usp=sharing

@KashifMisidia @Sagir this is the incident I described during the meetup. @JaneBurunina @ErmesT , @Ddimitra @indahnuria as nature lovers you will be sad to see this story.

#AwarenessChallenge #StateChallenge

[AniaKiser]

@ravindus OMG,I haven’t heard about it. I’m so sorry. What a disaster to the beautiful nature

[kasunaaa]

@ravindus It is sad to witness this disaster. Huge damage has happened to marine life and the beach of the west coast. Still, unnaturally dead bodies of turtles and dolphins are shored to various beaches.

I wish I could help in hand to clean the beaches. Unfortunately, we are in lockdown, and difficult to participate in those cleanup activities physically.

[indahnuria]

Oooh noooooo @ravindus … what a disastrous calamity My heart sank looking at the photos and the news about the fire and probably the biggest marine disaster in your country. Let’s do what we can to help address the problems and mark the area affected by it. Fingers crossed!

[Saidulkarim]

Very sad to hear that, it is a big damage for the ocean and nobody can extricate it. Thanks, @ravindus for sharing.

[CAAG1959]

Hola @ravindus que terrible noticia que este sucediendo este grave episodio de contaminación. Espero que el daño pueda ser minimizado lo más pronto posible.

Abrazo virtual y fraterno desde el Paisito.

Recuerda que la vida puede más.

Saludos desde Uruguay.

[ravindus]

@AniaKiser . It’s unmeasurable damage to marine life and the environment. We will see the repercussions of this for decades to come.

@kasunaaa , Yes mate. Let’s continue this mapping work to collate the debris and marine life impact info. Keep the mymap up to date and evolving. Once the lockdown is lifted we can join the cleanup activities.

@Erna_LaBeau , added the #.

[Zuhralc]

So sad and disturbing to see such a disastrous calamity. Let’s pray they ease lock down as soon as possible so you guys can help in cleaning up the ocean . So sad, indeed. Thanks for sharing @ravindus . stay safe and take care.

[TravellerG]

Hello dear @ravindus ,

Anyone with a living heart will be sad to hear this.

I read about this in the newspaper - I too felt about the consequences.

The published consequences are many.

Hope nature will help us to regain the loss.

@Erna_LaBeau @KashifMisidia @PritishB

Regards to all

[ErmesT]

What happened, and still happening, on the west coast of Sri Lanka is an apocalypse, @ravindus , @kasunaaa .

This is impossible to accept, as the damage is inconmensurable and will continue for years and years.

Thanks for helping by building an extremely useful My Maps.

I hope the United Nations will act, to increase the safety of the material transported by sea

[KashifMisidia]

Oh my God, that’s is very sad situation there @ravindus

I can see by your photos and read article on internet that a lot of damage to innocent marine creatures. It’s too difficult to recover it soon, but still I hope InshaAllah everything will be fine soon there.

Thank you my friend to sharing about this disaster, I heard about this incident when both we were together in @Sagir 's meet-up.

[ravindus]

@indahnuria , Yes it’s heartbreaking seeing those poor creatures. We have destroyed their lives and their habitat. Only time will tell how bad it is. At the moment we only can pray for mother nature to work her magic and save our Ocen.

@Saidulkarim , It’s a disaster we will have impacts for decades to come. Hope we could recover at least part of the damaged envoironment.

[Ddimitra]

This is heartbreaking story.

What can we do?

Plastic is our daily needs

Pray for the world that will be legacy to our children

[ravindus]

@Zuhralc , Yes. It’s a devestating time. We can see the damage but can’t do anything about it. Hope locked down would end soon.

@TravellerG , Yes we have to pray that mother nature would perform a miracle to save its Ocean children.

[ravindus]

@ErmesT , Indeed it is an apocalypse. Yes, I hope the UN and International Maritime organization would intervene. The concerning fact is this sip is a Brand New vessel build very recently with all the latest technologies and safety mechanisams. Amidst that this happened. Something is very wrong somewhere. Only Hope is expecting a miracle from Mother Nature to save her Ocen Children in Sri Lanka sea.

[ErmesT]

Yes, something is wrong in there, or untold @ravindus .

Safety is one of the sector I am involved too, in my own work, and even if the safety devices are the most expensive part of a machine but, if a safety protocol is not completely implemented and respected, my machines cannot run.

Nature has a mechanism always in action to counterbalance the problems, the extreme is to remove the disturbance (we)

[SupunW]

@ravindus , I’m working in the shipping industry. So I know how damaging this can be. All required steps should be taken immediately to control and reduce the damage to the environment. Thank you for creating a map. I got few location updates and will update in the map.

@kasunaaa , @ravindus No diving in west side for a long time.

[PaulPavlinovich]

Oh wow @ravindus this is truly an environmental disaster that will be felt for years to come. One single event has lead to this. Thanks for sharing about it. From these horrors we learn.

This is what Local Guides is all about, trying to make a difference - well done on the MyMap and I hope it helps resolve the problem.

Paul

[TravellerG]

“…Nature has a mechanism always in action to counterbalance the problems, the extreme is to remove the disturbance (we)…”

I loved your usage - now the pandemic proved it again.

Let us hope for the best, dear friend @ErmesT

[TravellerG]

I strongly believe in this.

Thanks for your response & wishes, @ravindus