Burning Ship With Chemicals At Risk Of Sinking Off Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has launched a criminal investigation into the fire and the pollution with the three senior most crewmen asked to remain in the island till investigations are completed.

A fire-damaged container vessel faced an imminent risk of sinking on Wednesday just off the Sri Lankan coast raising new fears of a bigger marine ecological disaster, the navy said. "The ship is facing an imminent risk of going down," spokesman Indika de Silva said hours after the Dutch Salvage firm SMIT attempted to tow the Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl further out to sea. An AFP photographer at Sarakkuwa, just north of the Colombo port said the vessel's stern was underwater. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ordered the crippled container carrier to be moved into deeper waters to prevent an oil spill near Sri Lanka's west coast should it sink near its anchorage near the Colombo port.