资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Originally published in July 2021, this story has been updated to include the latest facts, figures and references. 

It's visible in satellite images from just off Sri Lanka's coast: a thin grey film that snakes three kilometres out to sea before disappearing into the waves.

Marker buoys have been deployed around the periphery of X-Press Pearl to create a 50-meter safe zone around the wreck.

The slick is a visceral reminder of what observers say is a slow-motion environmental disaster – one of the worst in the country’s history – and of the mammoth effort that will be needed to clean it up.

"This is the biggest environmental catastrophe to hit Sri Lanka since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami," said Thummarukudyil Muraleedharan, the Operations Manager of the Crisis Management Branch with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).