Singapore ship that burned for 13 days killed dolphins, turtles, fish: Sri Lanka

The MV X-Press Pearl, which was carrying 81 containers of hazardous chemicals, caught fire in early June

Officials said 48 dead turtles, eight dolphins and many small fish had washed up on the country’s western and southern beaches in recent weeks

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Volunteers check the carcass of a blue whale that washed ashore at the island of Kayts, Sri Lanka. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:17pm, 17 Jun 2021Updated: 11:36pm, 17 Jun 2021

Dozens of turtles and dolphins were killed by intense heat and chemical poisoning from a Singapore-registered container ship that burned for almost two weeks off Sri Lanka, authorities said Thursday.

The MV X-Press Pearl, which sank on Thursday, had been partially submerged off Sri Lanka’s coast since early June after an onboard blaze released tonnes of plastic raw materials that swamped local beaches.

Wildlife officials said 48 dead turtles and eight dolphins, as well as many small fish, had washed up on the country’s western and southern beaches in recent weeks.

Wildlife officials remove a dead sea turtle that washed ashore at Galle Face beach in Colombo. Photo: AFP

“To see these images of dead turtles and dolphins is very distressing for our people,” Environment Ministry Secretary Anil Jasinghe told reporters in Colombo. “The carcasses that washed up soon after the fire had clear signs of burns from the intense heat of the ship.”

Jasinghe said preliminary reports also suggested that chemical poisoning was behind more recent discoveries of dead turtles.

Autopsies were being conducted to finalise the causes of death, he added.

Sri Lankan navy soldiers walk on the beach looking for plastic debris washed ashore from fire damaged container ship MV X-Press Pearl on June 14, 2021. Photo: AP

Authorities were also probing the death of a 9-metre (30-foot) blue whale off the Jaffna Peninsula about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Colombo.

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