The ship’s captain has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for oil spills in Mauritius Environmental News

The magistrate said the captain and the second were “irresponsible and did not deliver properly”.

A Mauritian court has sentenced the captain and first member of a cargo ship to 20 months in prison. it fell on a coral reef last year, causing the worst environmental disaster in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Magistrate Ida Dookhy Rambarrun said on Monday that the court had considered that “the two defendants had pleaded guilty and apologized”.

MV Wakashio, a Japanese-owned and Panamanian-flagged ship, sank in July 2020. toxic fuel emissions To the clean waters of Mauritius, covering mangroves, corals and other fragile ecosystems.

The captain of the ship, convicted by a Port Louis capital court last week, admitted to drinking at a boat party.

Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar and Hitihanillage Subhoda Janendra Tilakaratna, the first officer, were found guilty of “endangering safe navigation”.

“The captain and his second-in-command were irresponsible and did not properly perform their‘ navigational duties ’,” the magistrate said on Monday.

MV Wakashio was sailing from Singapore to Brazil with 3,800 tonnes of fuel oil and 200 tonnes of diesel when it encountered a reef off the south-east coast of Mauritius.

More than 1,000 tons of oil came out of the water full of marine life from a hull in the hull of the ship before the rescue crew could remove all the remaining fuel.

The accident happened near two critical ecological sites: Blue Bay, known for its coral gardens, and Pointe D’Esny, which occupies the mangrove forest, a crucial ecosystem as well as a weapon in the fight against global warming.

In the days following the accident, thousands of volunteers marched along the coast wearing rubber boots and gloves to wash the rocks and tie cords to support the greasy sea.

Thousands took to the streets in the coming months to protest the government’s response to the disaster.