Coast Guard, Kerala in race to stave off marine disaster
KOCHI: Three capital ships - ICG Samarth, ICG Saksham and ICG Vikram - were deployed off Kochi coast Monday and a pollution response vessel set sail from Mumbai to help stave off the threat of a marine disaster from chemical and oil-laden containers washing ashore from the Liberian ship MSC ELSA 3 that capsized and sank near Thottappally harbour in Alappuzha the previous morning.
The accelerated response also involved tug boats to move the 29 cargo containers and assorted debris - thermocol, powder and textiles - spotted floating along the Kollam coast.
Union shipping minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who took stock of the response at a meeting with the DG and secretary of shipping, wrote on X that all efforts were focused on "complete salvage of marine fuel and other hazardous materials" transported in the containers.
"The pollution response vessel Sagar Prahari is en route to the site. Regular aerial surveillance is being carried out using Dornier aircraft equipped with the MSS 6000 system to monitor any oil spillage.
All four company representatives of MSC have arrived in Kochi," he said.
The DG of shipping is probing the circumstances in which the Liberian vessel reported a critical "26-degree list" (tilt) towards starboard side when it was around 38 nautical miles southwest of Kochi.
The vessel sank 14.6 nautical miles off Thottappally at 7.50am on Sunday.
"The logbook should say if there were any collisions or other impediments on the way. When exactly they realised the listing should find mention too," an official said.
The mercantile marine dept in Kochi has already issued a pollution liability warning to the vessel owners, M/s MSC, under Merchant Shipping Act, 1958. MSC has appointed TT Salvage for container recovery, oil removal, and environmental clean-up.
CM Pinarayi Vijayan convened another emergency meeting Monday to review the situation, after which his office outlined the series of steps aimed at safeguarding the coastal population, averting an environmental crisis, and coordinating response mechanisms involving state and national agencies.
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India Gazette
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5 hours ago
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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.
Time of India
8 hours ago
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In 10 years, Goa loses a fifth of its tree cover
Margao: The state has lost over a fifth or 22% of its tree cover in recent years. Centre's data shows that Goa's tree cover peaked at 334sqkm in 2010-11, but fell to 258sqkm by 2021-22 — a loss of 76sqkm over a decade. This represents a 22.8% drop from the peak coverage. According to the latest data released by the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation in the 'EnviStats India 2025: Environment Statistics' report, Goa's tree cover peaked at 334sqkm in 2010-11, but declined to just 258sqkm by 2021-22 — a loss of 76sqkm over a decade. This represents a 22.8% reduction from the peak coverage. The data shows a significant initial recovery period from 2000 to 2010-11, when tree cover expanded from a mere 62sqkm to 334sqkm — a more than five-fold increase. However, this positive trend reversed sharply after 2010-11, with consistent year-on-year losses. The steepest decline occurred between 2015-16 and 2017-18, when tree cover dropped from 323sqkm to 272sqkm — a loss of 51sqkm in just two years. Experts said this period coincides with increased development pressures and infrastructure expansion across the state. The current tree cover of 258sqkm represents approximately 7% of Goa's total area of 3,702sqkm. Activists have already been calling for immediate action to reverse this trend and protect the remaining green cover in the state. The India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 released by the Union environment ministry in Dec showed that from 2021 to 2023, Goa's total forest cover came down by 1.50sqkm or 150ha. Goa's total forest cover now stands at 2, loss of forest cover was higher in North Goa at 90ha, besides a loss of 60ha of forest cover in South Goa. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
