Sunken ship full of bauxite may cause marine pollution: Expert

ANTALYA

The ship that sank off the southern province of Antalya on April 5 might cause sea pollution as it contains bauxite, a professor has warned.

After a foreign-flagged ship carrying minerals from the southern province of Hatay to Ukraine off Antalya sank, five of the 14 Syrian crew members were rescued.

One of them lost his life, and eight people have not yet been reached.

Mehmet Gökoğlu from Akdeniz University’s Faculty of Fisheries warned that the ship carrying bauxite, which sank 22 miles offshore from Kumluca, could lead to marine pollution.

Pointing out that it is impossible to bring the ship to the surface as it sank far from the shore at a quite deep depth, Gökoğlu stated that the ship, which will remain on the seabed, is expected to drift westward with sea flows over time.

More than 3,000 tons of mineral cargo on the ship will cause metal pollution underwater, Gökoğlu said.

“In fact, this mineral also exists naturally in the marine ecosystem, but the presence of such a large amount in the ship creates heavy metal pollution underwater,” he said.

Noting that the ship also contained a large amount of oil as it planned to travel a long distance, he said that even though there is no leakage from the ship under the sea at the moment, the ship will rot over time and leaks will eventually occur.

“There is a pile of metal that does not exist in the sea naturally. Anything that does not belong in the sea is pollution.”