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FLOREAL, Mauritius – The bodies of whales, turtles and other marine creatures have turned up off the coast of Mauritius, five weeks after a ship carrying thousands of tons of oil ran aground off the Indian Ocean island.
Fishermen told NBC News they had found melon-headed whales near the spot where the Japanese-owned MV Wakashio crashed into Point D-Esny reef off the small nation’s southeast coast on July 25. The ship began to spill oil on August 6 and entered two parts 11 days later. It was deliberately sunk on Monday.
“I know the spill is responsible for their deaths,” said Yannick Fine, 33, adding that some of the whales were pregnant, as it was the season when they raise and nurse their young.
“They used to frolic next to my boat,” he added. “Now they are dead. I have seen their mouths covered in oil, I know that the spill is responsible for their deaths ”.
Stephan Gua, a member of the activist group Rezistans ek Alternativ, said that he and other members had seen dead creatures floating in the water earlier this week. Others found alive had “blood around the mouth,” he added.
Images shared on social media and published in the local press show the mutilated bodies of whales, some with blackened mouths. Other reports say sea turtles, fish and crabs have been found dead off the country’s coast.
“It is devastating and these deaths are just the beginning,” said Vassen Kauppaymuthoo, oceanographer and managing director of the private company Delphinium Ltd.
“The situation is going to get progressively worse. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, “he said, adding that many of the dead animals” would have been eaten by sharks or sunk to the bottom of the sea. “
Shark bites seen on some of the whale bodies indicated that they had been weakened by contamination, he said. “They must have suffered for a long time,” he said.
He added that it was “very difficult to think that anything other than the oil spill” and the sinking of the MV Wakashio could have caused their deaths.
The ship was carrying about 4,000 metric tons of oil, 3,800 tons of very low sulfur fuel oil and 200 tons of diesel when it ran aground, owner Tokyo-Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd said in a statement earlier this month.
While the government said it was able to pump much of the fuel into smaller tankers, some gushed out of crevices in the ship, staining the island’s turquoise water and threatening its coral reefs, protected lagoons and the coastline, vital to the main one. industry of the country. tourism.
More than 880 metric tons of oily waste were collected at 14 sites, according to a United Nations report.
Hundreds of volunteers also joined citizen-led efforts to contain the spill, which UN satellites revealed had “badly affected” more than 30 kilometers of the small nation’s coastline.
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The captain and first officer were arrested on August 18 and charged with endangering the safe navigation of the ship, which broke into two parts and was deliberately sunk by the Mauritian government on Monday.
The decision was condemned by Greenpeace, which called for investigations into the way the ship has been handled.
“Given the speed with which the decision was made between the breakdown of the ship and the start of the trailer, we find it highly unlikely that all the polluting content will be removed,” the organization said in an open letter Monday.
Oceanographer Kauppaymuthoo said it was “very difficult to think that anything other than the oil spill and sinking” could have caused the deaths of the animals found off shore.
However, Mauritius Fisheries Minister Sudheer Maudhoo disagreed with that assessment and said at a press conference on Wednesday that he had been informed that the deaths were not related to the MV Wakashio.
NBC News has approached the government independently and repeatedly for comment.
Autopsies are being performed on some of the creatures and many are suspicious of the government assessment, including Carina Gounden, a member of Aret Kokin Nu Laplaz, an environmental association of citizens and non-governmental organizations on the island.
“They are insulting our intelligence,” he said, adding that the government had been “too hasty” to conclude that there was no link between the ship and the death of the animals.
“I’ve talked to people from all over the coast,” he said. “They are saying that this is definitely abnormal.”
He added that the government had not been transparent enough about its response.
“In Mauritius, there is a feeling that they have not told us everything,” he said. “That there is a cover-up.”
Kauppaymuthoo agreed that the authorities had downplayed the seriousness of the situation.
“There is a lack of transparency and coordination,” he said. “We need a smooth and efficient recovery. I would recommend bringing scientists together to form an independent scientific body.
“The more time we waste, the greater the impact on the environment and we must be prepared for more horrible events to come,” he added.
