Effects of oil leak surfacing?

By Vanessa Sridharan

The after-effects of the furnace oil leak from the Bangladeshi merchant ship ‘Amanath sha’ which sank off the coast of Habaraduwa three weeks ago, have apparently begun to surface, with a whale found dead on the Koggala beach on Thursday morning.

Marine biologists who claimed it will take weeks for side effects to surface after the disaster, are now certain that the oil leak has created an imbalance which will cause sea creatures to show symptoms in the coming weeks, as reported in The Sunday Times last week.

“A post-mortem on the whale is being carried out by veterinary surgeons, while a full scale investigation into its death is also being carried out by the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), since the whale was found dead on the contaminated beach,” Director K. Haputhanthri said.

Mr. Haputhanthri said that from the data received from researchers on the field the whale appeared to have an injury, while the type, weight and length of the whale are yet to be recorded by the veterinary surgeons who are trying to establish the cause of death before the carcass decomposes.

“The carcass was discovered in the wee hours of the morning and informed the relevant authorities,” Habaraduwa Police Inspector Sujeeva De Silva told The Sunday Times.

The cargo on board the ship which consisted of more than 1000 teak logs which floated ashore has now been cleared while the oil is still visible on the beach and more is washed up on the shore even as the clean up process is being carried out, Inspector De Silva said.

The whale’s death still remains a mystery; though environmentalists are blaming it on the contaminated water and warning that before long other dead animals would wash up on the beach.