Sea Pollution

The Sri Lankan government on Tuesday said it will consult the Attorney General on the next course of action after the owning company of a vessel failed to honour a court order directing it to pay USD 1 billion in compensation for a mishap, considered to be the worst marine disaster in the Indian Ocean. Singapore-flagged container vessel MV X-Press Pearl caught fire in May 2021 off Colombo port and burned for nearly two weeks while carrying 81 containers of hazardous chemicals, including 25 tonnes of nitric acid. The incident caused widespread marine pollution, with billions of plastic nurdles and toxic substances spilling into Sri Lankan waters, killing marine life and devastating coastal communities. Dead turtles, dolphins and whales were seen washed up onto beaches for weeks following the disaster. On July 24, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court directed the ship's owning and operating companies to pay USD 1 billion in compensation, with an initial tranche of USD 250 million due by Septem

At a small section of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's central control room in northeastern Japan, the treated water transfer switch is on. A graph on a computer monitor nearby shows a steady decrease of water levels as treated radioactive wastewater is diluted and released into the Pacific Ocean. In the coastal area of the plant, two seawater pumps are in action, gushing torrents of seawater through sky blue pipes into the big header where the treated water, which comes down through a much thinner black pipe from the hilltop tanks, gets diluted by hundreds of times before the release. The sound of the treated and diluted radioactive water flowing into an underground secondary pool was heard from beneath the ground during Sunday's first plant tour for media, including The Associated Press, since the controversial release began. The best way to eliminate the contaminated water is to remove the melted fuel debris, said Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings spokesperson Kenichi .

All equipment needed for the release into the sea of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has been completed and will be ready for a safety inspection by Japanese regulators this week, the plant operator said Monday, as opposition to the plan continues in and outside Japan over safety concerns. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said it installed the last piece of an undersea tunnel dug to release the water offshore, completing the construction of the necessary equipment that began last August. A mandatory safety inspection of the equipment will begin Wednesday, said Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shinichi Yamanaka, who visited the Fukushima Daiichi plant last week. If everything goes well, TEPCO is expected to receive a safety permit for the release about a week after the inspection ends, officials said. Discharge of the treated water is expected to begin this summer, although the exact date has not been set. The plan has faced fierce .

The United Nations and various other international organizations observed World Oceans Day annually on June 8

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The series of pipeline explosions have yet to be definitively proved as sabotage or attributed to any nation, but most analysts believe that the likely culprit is Russia.

Eight of these are in Asia and two in Africa - areas in which hundreds of millions of people live