A sunken ship and a sea of worries

The Hindu

a day ago

E Sreenivasan, an 80-year-old fisherman, stands near a granite memorial as he recalls the fury of the sea 21 years ago. On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck the Indian Ocean coast with a ferocious intensity, uprooting trees, smashing buildings, and sweeping away thousands of people. At the fisher hamlet in Arattupuzha at the southern end of Alappuzha district in Kerala, the tragedy claimed 29 lives. 'They included three children from the same family,' he says, pointing to the memorial.
Soon after the disaster, a 14-kilometre-long fortress-like seawall came up in Arattupuzha. It was created with concrete tetrapods, huge boulders, sand bags, and coir geotextiles.
Two decades later, the people of Arattupuzha are relying on that seawall to protect themselves, their houses, and the coast from sea incursion. On May 25, the sea claimed a Liberian-flag container ship, MSC Elsa 3, which was carrying 644 containers, some of which had hazardous cargo; 367 tonnes of heavy fuel oil; and 64 tonnes of diesel. Since then, a large strip of the Kerala coastline has been littered with plastic, cotton, and other waste that washed ashore from containers that fell into the sea from the ship. While there has been no leakage so far, there are oil patches around the ship, the Kerala government said.
Days after the ship sank, the government banned fishing within a 20-nautical-mile (about 37 km) radius of the wreck and promised to give 6 kg of free rice and ₹1,000 a month to each of the affected fisher families in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, and Ernakulam, stretching from the central to the southern part of the State.
Sreenivasan is unhappy with the compensation. 'Each worker in the sector used to get ₹200 as daily compensation whenever the government banned fishing due to adverse weather or other reasons,' he says. 'The ₹1,000 that the government is giving now is a pittance.'
Binu Ponnan, the Alappuzha district president of the All India Fishermen Congress, an organisation that works for fishers' welfare and rights, also believes that the compensation is grossly inadequate. 'The government must sanction at least ₹10,000 per fisher's family per month, to help them overcome the lull in the sector following the sinking of the ship,' he says.
The sinking of a ship
On May 24, the 27-year-old vessel, owned by the global shipping giant Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), departed the recently inaugurated Vizhinjam port in Thiruvananthapuram and was en route to Kochi. For the crew of 24 — comprising a Russian captain, 20 Filipinos, two Ukranians, and a Georgian — the journey was supposed to take a day.
By afternoon, the 184-metre-long vessel began developing a starboard list ('tilt' in common parlance) when it was sailing off the Thotapally coast, according to defence sources. By 3.15 p.m., the list had increased to a frightening 30 degrees. Containers began to slide off the ship.
The crew sent an SOS message, prompting the Indian Coast Guard to depute three relief and rescue ships and a Dornier aircraft, and the Indian Navy to send two ships. At around 5:15 p.m., Kerala State Disaster Management Authority member-secretary Shekhar L. Kuriakose issued a series of audio clips warning the public about potentially dangerous cargo in the vessel.
Fighting poor visibility, strong gales, a sea swell, and the debris and containers floating around the vessel, the rescuers brought 21 members of the crew to Kochi. Warnings were issued to other merchant vessels to stay clear of the area, add defence sources.
On the morning of May 25, shortly after the last three crew members were rescued, the ship capsized and sank, along with the containers. Fisherfolk say they were not worried about the incident until reports about a pollution scare came out and led to a fall in demand for fish.
On May 27, an order issued by the principal bench of the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi pointed out that the ship was carrying hazardous materials such as calcium carbide, oil, and other items. These could seriously impact the marine and coastal environment and affect the biodiversity and water quality of the area, it said.
'On account of wave, wind and current actions of the waters, these pollutants can travel to other coastal parts of the country, including Lakshadweep islands, affecting them. The impact on the Lakshadweep island will be severe as the island coastal water has high bio-diversity with corals,' the bench said.
A few days later, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held a press conference. He quashed speculation that fish caught off the coast of Kerala was inedible. He said that the containers carrying the highly flammable calcium carbide, stowed away in the ship's cargo hold, remained submerged and posed no immediate threat.
The MSC has appointed the U.S.-based firm, T&T Salvage, to handle the environmental clean-up operations. T&T will help mitigate the risks posed by the calcium carbide and rubber compounds in the containers in the vessel.
Sources in the Mercantile Marine Department say that different types of equipment were mobilised for the recovery. These include bollard-pull tug boats, underwater scanning and mapping machinery, oil-spill response and fuel retrieval apparatus, among others.
'We have many other worries'
While the precise number of containers that fell into the sea is yet to be ascertained, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services has warned that 45% of them could be washed ashore. Sreenivasan is not perturbed about the containers. Instead, he worries about the 'hundreds of tonnes of mineral sand that are being mined every day' from the coastal areas in Kerala's southern districts, for commercial use. 'Indiscriminate mining has led to a fall in catch of many fish varieties, and sea incursion,' he says.
Ponnan, from the All India Fishermen Congress, says the waste and pollution threat from the ship is only the latest in a series of problems that the fisher folk are facing.
'Sand mining over years has severely affected the coast. Chemicals, sewage, and other waste are dumped into the sea from the State's coast. The government must take steps to prevent all this since it has been affecting the fisheries sector and the fragile marine ecosystem,' he says.
Ponnan says officials have so far failed to clear the non-biodegradable and other waste that was washed ashore from the ship. 'The authorities must also publish the precise location of the shipwreck and the fallen containers, so that damage to boats and fishing nets can be prevented even after the fishing ban is lifted,' he says.
He also believes that sections of the media must show restraint in covering the episode. 'Many people are reluctant to purchase fish from these areas because of media coverage of the issue. This is despite the fact that incidents of 'fish kill' (in which dead fish are found in large numbers in specific areas) have not been reported anywhere along the Kerala coast after the sinking of the ship,' he says.
B. Sasi lives in Purakkad in Alappuzha district and owns two fishing vessels. Driving past the coastal road on his two-wheeler with a packet full of freshly caught fish, he dismisses concerns about environmental pollution.
'Reading and seeing some news reports, people got scared that fish from the sea may be contaminated. But they were scared for barely a week. The price of kilimeen (pink perch) had nosedived to ₹30 after the ship sunk, and has now gone up to ₹190 per kg. The price of matthi (sardine) has risen from ₹15 to ₹300, and ayila (mackerel) is selling for ₹220 a kg,' he says, adding that the sea is vast and is able to handle upheavals.
After the ship sunk, fisher welfare organisations in several areas began hosting 'fish festivals' across the coast. These were aimed at reassuring people that fish caught in the area are safe to eat, and to reinvigorate the fish market.
In the northern part of Kollam, in the Alappad Azheekal harbour, trawlers and other vessels land one after the other, most of them bringing in freshly caught prawns. The catch is cleaned and stacked in plastic containers, before being taken to markets and eateries.
K.C. Sreekumar watches the workers. He used to be known as an environmentalist, but prefers not to be addressed as one now. He says, 'There is little left of nature now, so there is hardly any reason to be referred to as an environmentalist. I was also a fisherman, but I took a break from it due to some health issues.' He says the price of fish will probably increase in the next few days as the government has imposed curbs on fishing.
Sreekumar says soon after the ship sank, most sections of the media began speaking of 'threats' to the fishing sector and of 'pollution' in the sea without any thought or research. 'But the same media often ignores the indiscriminate dumping of untreated pollutants by factories, other establishments, and households into water bodies and the sea off the coast of Kerala,' he complains.
Sreekumar echoes Srinivasan in saying that mineral sand mining has made matters worse. He says there is fear that 'a Somalia-like situation' will occur a few decades down the line, due to the unregulated exploitation of coastal and marine resources and worsening instances of pollution. 'All these are impacting the State's once-thriving fisheries sector despite all the talk of a blue economy,' he fears.
V. T. Sebastian is general convener of the Chellanam Kochi Janakeeya Vedi. This is a group of organisations that is spearheading the demand for robust seawalls along the Chellanam-Kochi coast to prevent the sea from destroying more houses in the area. Sebastian says people are fortunate as the containers and pollutants from the vessel stayed clear of the Kochi coast.
'Still, danger lurks in the form of many tonnes of colourless plastic nurdles that spilled out of many of the containers in Kerala's southern districts. The ones on the coast can be cleared, but the rest would have ended up in the sea. Some people fear that fish may eat the nurdles and this may in turn pose a severe health hazard to the people consuming those fish,' he says.
Already, many people are refusing to eat fish and this is affecting the livelihood of fishers, he says. 'Apart from increasing compensation for fishers' families, the State and Centre must also salvage the containers that toppled into the sea and those that remain on the ship. Otherwise, these will pose dangers in the long term to fishers and others who consume fish. The government must also inspect sea water samples every day to rule out contamination,' he says.
Apart from Kerala's southern districts, there has been a lull in demand for fish in Kochi, says Ajith, a retail fish seller from Vypeen island, located off the Kochi coast. 'Many households have stopped consuming fish. But hotels and canteens continue to buy seafood,' he says.
Compensation to fishers
The Kerala Matsyathozhilali Aikya Vedhi (KMAV), a trade union of fishers, has demanded that MSC compensate fishers whose livelihood has been affected over the past fortnight.
KMAV president, Charles George, asks why the vessel that ought to operate amid waves that can rise up to 15 m in height tilted on May 24 and sank on May 25 after encountering waves of a much lower height, of about 3 m.
'The ship sank less than 30 km off Thotapally, while the shipping channel is located 50 km away. In this situation, the captain ought to have been arrested and the operator company held accountable for the pollution. The Centre must take steps to ensure that the company pays compensation to fishers affected by the incident,' he says.
George points to similar incidents in the Philippines, South Korea, and France where operator-owner firms 'paid compensation' to the affected people and for cleaning and restoring the marine environment, as per norms laid out by the International Maritime Organisation.
KMAV secretary, N.A. Jain, says he is concerned about ensuring the safety of the 3,800 trawlers, over 1,000 fibre boats, and over 500 inboard fishing vessels operating off the Kerala coast. He demands that the State government prevail on the Centre to ensure that ships operate 50 km away from the State's coast, to prevent sinking incidents nearer to the coast, as well as the collision of ships with fishing vessels.
While the Directorate General of Shipping and the Mercantile Marine Department attributed the sinking to technical failure in ballast-water management, which ought to ensure the ship's stability, senior officials of fisheries and marine research institutions say three committees, each headed by civil servants, have been formed to assess the damage caused by the shipwreck to the marine environment and to the fisheries sector.
'A joint report will be submitted to the agencies and research institutions concerned. As of now, there is no cause for alarm since marine pollution beyond the threshold would have resulted in 'fish kill', which has not been reported so far along the Kerala coast,' says a high-ranking official from one of the institutions.
However, the State government must salvage the cargo and oil from the container vessel that sank. It must also incentivise people and agencies who collect plastic and other waste that were washed ashore, and send the waste for scientific recycling, he adds.
The Chairperson of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board, Sreekala S., says there is no 'alarming' presence of pollutants in water samples that have been collected from the coast.
'Efforts are being made to collect samples from the vicinity of the sunk vessel and analyse them,' she says.
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