{"id":114961,"date":"2021-06-07T15:35:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T22:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=114961"},"modified":"2021-06-07T15:35:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T22:35:34","slug":"sri-lanka-agent-deleted-vital-e-mails-ship-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/07\/sri-lanka-agent-deleted-vital-e-mails-ship-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka agent deleted vital e-mails: ship probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Mailonline<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The MV X-Press Pearl was carrying hundreds of tonnes of chemicals and plastics when it burned for almost two weeks just off Sri Lanka’s coast<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sri Lankan court hearing into the fire and sinking of a container ship off Colombo was told Monday that its local agent had deleted e-mails vital to the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl reported an onboard acid leak to its representative Sea Consortium Lanka who in turn failed to alert local authorities, the state prosecutor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said investigators found that Sea Consortium had wiped its e-mails with the Russian skipper Tyutkalo Vitaly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The magistrate ordered the local agent (of the ship) to provide the originals of the e-mails from mail servers located abroad,” a court official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magistrate Chalani Perera also ordered the Sri Lankan navy to protect the wreckage lying submerged just outside the Colombo port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan port authorities had said they were unaware that the vessel had been leaking nitric acid since May 11, nine days before the fire started in Sri Lankan waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ports in Qatar and India had refused to offload a leaking acid container which had been loaded onboard in Jebel Ali, Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s navy recovered the ship’s black box over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Voyage Data Recorder, also known as a maritime “black box”, was found intact and is expected to help investigators review procedures and instructions ahead of the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan authorities hope the black box will provide details of the ship’s movements and its communications with the Colombo harbour, where it had been due to dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan police launched a criminal investigation, interviewing Vitaly and his Chief Engineer Sadilenko Oleg and Chief Officer Peter Anish, an Indian, and seizing their passports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities are bracing for a possible oil spill from the submerged wreck. However, there has been no sign of any leaks so far, they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonnes of microplastic granules from the ship swamped an 80-kilometre (50-mile) stretch of beach declared off-limits for residents. Fishing in the area has been banned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan environmentalists on Friday sued the government and the ship’s operators for allegedly failing to prevent what they called the “worst marine disaster” in the country’s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Mailonline The MV X-Press Pearl was carrying hundreds of tonnes of chemicals and plastics when it burned for almost two weeks just off Sri Lanka’s coast A Sri Lankan court hearing into the fire and sinking of a container ship off Colombo was told Monday that its local agent had deleted e-mails vital to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}