Ship on fire throws a pall of gloom over the coast of Kerala

The silence of the night outside the Emergency Medicine department of AJ Hospital and Research Center in Karnataka’s coastal city of Mangaluru On June 9, the siren-flowering ambulances that came in were crushed. Healthcare providers in the hospital, together with a few naval staff, hurried around the vehicles for patients, some of them in a critical condition.

The six patients were among the 18 crew members who were saved MV Wan Hai 503A 27-meter long Singapore flag freight ship that flew nearly 44 nautical miles of the Azhikkal coast in Kannur, Kerala, that morning. The ship had 22 crew members and four of them, two from Taiwan, one from Indonesia, and one from Myanmar, were missing.

A joint team of the Indian Coast Guard and the Indian Marine that deals with rescue operations in the sea. The ship had left Colombo in Sri Lanka on 7 June and would reach Mumbai on 10 June. An explosion in one of the containers reportedly led to the fire, which caused an unprecedented crisis middle -sea, because smoke plumes quickly swing in the air.

The disaster caused alarm bells in Kerala, because the incident came only a few weeks later MSc Elsa 3The Liberia-flagged container ship, dropped from the coast of Kochi on 25 May. While the authorities were struggling with the impact of this incident on the marine and coastal environment, another tragedy has asked more serious questions about maritime safety and the potential risks that such accidents pose for people and the marine ecosystem.

The freight manifesto of MV Wan Hai 503 shows that the ship had 1,754 containers on board, of which 143 contain hazardous substances. The Contents Included Substances Classified by The International Maritime Organization As Dangerous Goods Under Its Class 3 (Flammable Liquids), Class 4.1 (Flammable Solids), Class 4.2 (Substances Liable To Spontaneous In Contact 4.3 (Substans (Substances), Embustion (Flass 4.3 (Flass 4.3 (Flass (Substances), Embustion (Flass 4.3 (Substances). Gases), class 6.1 (toxic substances), class 8 (corrosive substances), and class 9 (miscellaneous dangerous substances and articles) cargo. The fall of some containers in the sea after the explosion and the list of the ship has resulted in health problems.

C. Anulekshmi, Senior Scientist and Head, Kozhikode Regional Station, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), says that the in the short term impact of chemicals or debris causes immediate damage to life on sea, causing the death of organisms and a reduced water quality.

“These effects can vary from direct toxicity to organisms, habitat destruction and disruption of ecosystems. There may be water in these areas due to tides, water areas and wind. There are opportunities for dilution of the chemicals in water. The immediate effect on the surrounding organisms of the ship,” she says.

The chemicals can poison sitting and benthic marine organisms because they can collect the dangerous materials in their bodies. The organisms in the Neritic zone, a shallow, sun -crossed region of the ocean above the continental plank, can go from the location to a safer location. All these depend on the amount of spilled chemicals, she says.

“If the dangerous chemicals are spilled in the sea, they can immediately affect plants in the surrounding places, which can also influence all organisms in that area. These basic parts of the food chain will not be available for marine organisms and the food chain in the ocean in the ocean will be an enormous, dynamic and resilient,” says anoleeks. “

Injured crew members of Fire found on Singapore flag container ship MV Wan Hai 503 shifted to a hospital in Mangaluru on June 9 Night. | Photocredit: Indian Coast Guard

Rajeev S. Menon, Professor, Chemistry department, University of Calicut, says that most dangerous goods are used on the ship on a large scale, industrial raw material chemicals for the production of common polymers, resins, pesticides and other advanced fine chemicals.

The freight manifesto shows the presence of nitrocellulose with alcohol. “Het mengen en dispersie van nitrocellulose in zeewater zal explosies voorkomen, en dit is waarschijnlijk het meest wenselijke resultaat om te hopen op, omdat het een niet-toxische stof is. Chemicaliën zoals chlooraniline, 1,2,3-trichloorbenzeen, naftaleen, benzophenon, en maleïne en mannelijk anhyiceren zijn in de malmente en mannelijk anhyicums zijn in de Malmen.

Hydrobricic acid and phosphoric acids, which are highly corrosive acids, are soluble in water and disappear fairly quickly into seawater. When mixing, they will cause a localized, short -lived dip in the pH (measuring the acidity or alkality) of the seawater that can be harmful to water life.

He says that a direct reading of the recruited dangers of these chemicals can be somewhat misleading, because their mixture with a large volume of seawater will significantly reduce and drain some dangers.

In the meantime, confronted with repetition of such incidents and the resulting threat of large -scale pollution, the Ministry of Havens, Shipping and Waterways and agencies such as the Mercantile Navy Department (MMD) are in the context of preparing a action plan to prevent the maritime framework.

The sources say that the two back-to-back incidents off the coast of Kerala have laid critical vulnerabilities in the maritime regulatory architecture of India. Complex property problems, threat of dangerous charge and delayed emergency aid after sinking are a wake-up call for stakeholders.

“The proposed action plan is based on the most important lessons of the recent incidents to outline an extensive series of steps, including those aimed at strengthening maritime safety, environmental protection and institutional preparation,” say MMD officials.

They include upgrading the port infrastructure and responsibilities and guaranteeing the availability of towing infrastructure and improving efficiency in an emergency response. In order to meet the increasing number of ships, India must expand its sanctioned power of portstaat control officers, which now encounters an vacancy rate of 40%. There is also a need to rest with advanced digital inspection tools, say MMD sources.

Trade leaders in the fishing sector are concerned about the impact of the accidents on the means of existence of the fishermen. The recurring accidents, they fear, could hit the fishermen.

Representatives of trade unions in the fishing sector say that it is necessary to improve the inspections in ports, also at the new inaugurated in Vizhinjam.

Charles George, President, Kerala Matssyathozhilali Aikya Vedi, notes that the sinking of the Liberia flag MSc Elsa 3 Had prevented a thorough fitness inspection at Vizhinjam to guarantee the management of the ballast water.

“There has been a delay of more than fourteen days when registering a case against the company’s company. Why are such ships that are older than 25 years old to operate with dangerous cargo to ports in India,” he wonders.

However, officials from the Ministry of the Union, Shipping and the Waterways say that older ships do not always have to be unsuitable for use, especially if they have received a safety certificate due to classification societies.

“There are efforts to start the reforms in the sector. Although 13 June has been established as the deadline to complete the oil recovery process of the ship that fell off the coast of Alappuzha, the goal is to demobilize the running multi-agency response and Salvo efforts that are led by.

News about the possible contamination in marine organisms, including fish, after the accident, a few people in Kerala forced to leave their basic diet and choose meat. The shift in the food practice has hit fish sellers such as Sreedevi Lateesh, who pends daily with fish with fish from her house in Vaikom to Kochi by bus.

“Despite financial difficulties, I had to take a break from the sale of fish for more than a week due to a decrease in the demand for fish from households,” she says, adding that the demand for fish still needs to be collected.

In the meantime, CMFRI officials collect water and sediment samples from the coastal areas of Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram and continuously follow fishing there.

A senior official says that only small fishing vessels in these areas are active due to the current monsoon trawl ban. “So far there are no reports of dead fish on the coast or on the fishing locations. At the moment, the fish available in the markets mainly come from the coastal areas of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. There may be no serious concern about consuming fish now,” the official adds.

Five coastguard ships, two Dornier aircraft and one helicopter are working on the rescue mission. The primary focus is limiting the movement of the ship, which is on a drift. The ship will be dragged to a safer location to prevent a potential ecological disaster, according to the central agencies involved in the mission.

The recurring maritime accidents have called for an extensive investigation into ship units and the safety and precautionary measures to be taken, because the Zeroutes of Kerala are busy after commissioning the Vizhinjam International Port.

((With input from John L. Paul in Kochi))