Seeking the Centre's assistance to take immediate containment and monitoring measures to safeguard the coastal communities and ecosystems in the wake of the recent shipwreck that occurred off Alappuzha, Congress MP for Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, wrote a letter and posted it on X on Friday.
The letter addressed to Union Fisheries Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, and Ports and Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, sought central assistance to Kerala in managing the crisis and supporting the coastal community. Tharoor requested that expert disaster response and environmental monitoring teams be deployed to support Kerala’s efforts in managing and mitigating the environmental damage.
He also sought financial relief for the affected fishing community to compensate for the loss of livelihood and income. Tharoor wanted the Centre to provide compensation to the Kerala government to cover the substantial costs incurred in emergency operations, environmental clean-up, and long-term ecological restoration and support to the fishermen community. Considering the potentially serious environmental, social, and economic consequences, the Kerala government has declared the 25 May shipwreck incident as a state-specific disaster, he pointed out. He said the local fishing community had suffered a near-total loss of livelihood after the incident.
Also Read: Kerala calls MSC ELSA3 shipwreck a state disaster
The situation has escalated due to the washing ashore of substantial quantities of plastic nurdles, which are used as raw materials in the manufacturing industry. These have been reported along coastlines in Thiruvananthapuram and parts of Tamil Nadu, which is a long-term threat, the letter said. There is also an ongoing risk of oil spillage or leakage from hazardous containers still submerged at the wreck site which could cause irreversible damage to marine biodiversity, coral ecosystems, and coastal livelihoods, he added.
He said India must enforce its obligations under international maritime law, particularly the International Convention for the prevention of pollution from ships (MARPOL) and Nairobi International convention on the removal of wrecks (2007). These conventions provide a legal framework for addressing marine pollution, assigning liability, and ensuring that flag states and shipowners are held accountable for such incidents, Tharoor said in the letter.
Tharoor said the disaster serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of India’s coastal regions to maritime accidents involving hazardous cargo, and urged the Centre to collaborate with relevant agencies to commission a comprehensive environmental impact assessment and develop robust policies to prevent future occurrences of this nature.
The Liberian-flagged cargo vessel MSC ELSA 3, capsized and sank off the coast of Thottappally in Kerala’s Alappuzha district on 25 May. The vessel, which was enroute from Vizhinjam to Kochi, was carrying over 643 containers including several listed as hazardous.
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