Kendrapara, June 15: Coast Guard officials today said that the wreckage of the Chinese ship lying abandoned off the Gahirmatha coast “is not a cause of worry”.
The Coast Guard said that the sea-worthy foreign vessel lying aground off the Gahirmatha coast does not pose any security threat despite its close proximity to the defence test range centre at the Wheeler Island.
“It was a fishing vessel. It could not have posed any threat to the nation’s security,” said coast guard officials.
“The foreign vessel was on fishing voyage when it capsized off the East Sri Lanka coast. We have already received reports from Chennai Coast Guard headquarters confirming this.
“Thus, it could be conclusively construed that the foreign vessel’s wreckage is safe from the viewpoint of coastal security,” said Saroj Kumar Sahu, commandant, Coast Guard, Paradip district headquarters.
Adverse weather has come in the way of Coast Guard’s inspection of the vessel’s wreckage.
“We would physically inspect the wreckage after the improvement in weather condition. We have already stepped up patrol within five nautical miles radius in the deep-sea from the coast where the shipwreck was found. The wreckage is lying in a shallow zone near the shoreline. The Coast Guard ship, therefore, would not make its way into the area. We will be reaching there by high-speed motorised boats once the sea becomes stable,” Sahu told The Telegraph.
Allaying ecological concerns, Manoj Kumar Mahapatra, divisional forest officer, Rajnagar Mangrove (Wildlife), said: “There is no threat of oil spill as its stock has got exhausted in mid-sea where it had capsized. So there is no possibility of the wreckage triggering any damage to marine ecology either.”
Mahapatra, however, said: “It (shipwreck) would erode the beach or would trigger sand-casting leading to formation of sand dunes. The vessel’s wreckage needs to be removed immediately.”
Kendrapara collector Pradipta Kumar Pattnaik said: “There are lot of legal formalities involved in clearing the debris as the sunken ship is a Chinese one.”
