Popular holiday island ‘heading for disaster’ due to sunken cruise ship
A sunken shipwreck is threatening a popular holiday island as campaigners say it’s polluting the environment surrounding it.
The cruise ship, which sunk off the coast of the Greek island of Santorini in 2007, was left to rot under the sea for years.
And now experts fear the MS Sea Diamond is releasing toxic waste into the water which could affect the holiday hotspot.
Two passengers died when the 22,000-ton cruise ship sunk off the coast of the Greek island nearly 17 years ago.
Local people have been fighting for years to get the wreckage removed, worried about the consequences of the pollution caused by the ship’s fuel tanks.
And residents have this week demanded the necessary and immediate removal of the ship in a letter to the Greek Parliament’s Special Standing Committee for Environmental Protection.
The letter read: ‘The shipwreck remains on the seabed and continues to pollute, at a slow but steady rate, it erodes daily and at any time it can cause an incalculable ecological disaster.’
But so far local authorities have failed to salvage the shipwreck.
It’s causing a long-running dispute on the island, which could spell disaster for the future of Santorini.
Campaigners told The Sun that the popular island is ‘heading for disaster’ if something isn’t done soon to tackle the wreckage.
They added that the government has ‘failed the community’ and the lack of action may lead to an environmental disaster.
There are fears that toxic waste could spill out of the sunken ship and poison Santorini’s coastlines, which would make it dangerous for people to go to the beaches and swim in the sea.
The shipwreck contains huge volumes of motor fuel and lubricants as well as hundreds of litres of battery electrolytes.
It also contains copper cables, toxic heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals.
Experts say it could take up to 400 years for all of these pollutants to fully decompose.
Now they have called the island a ‘ticking time bomb’ as the wreck could cause a catastrophic event impacting the popular destination.
Loucas Lignos said: ‘All these carcinogenic substances are dangerous for humans. At the same time, desalination procedures cannot filter through the dangerous heavy metals.
‘The main problem is that these chemicals can enter the human body through bioaccumulation – either via desalination of the water or by fish consumption.
‘If that happens it will be a huge environmental disaster for the Santorini beaches.’
The wreckage is around 800m from the port and around 100m underwater.
The ship, owned by Louis Hellenic Cruises, sunk on April 5, 2007, on a reef. It was carrying 1,195 passengers at the time.
Most of the people on board, who were mostly Americans and Canadians, were safely rescued but a French dad and his teenage daughter died.
The bodies of Jean Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter Maud were never found.
In the months immediately after the wreckage there was an attempt made to decontaminate the waters around it.
This was followed by an unsuccessful effort to sort the problem with a pumping operation.
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