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A state of emergency has been declared in the Galápagos Islands after a ship ran aground nearby last week.
The ship, called the Floreana, had been carrying food and other supplies - including some potentially polluting liquids and 45,000 litres (10,000 gallons) of fuel.
For now the ship remains in one piece, but officials are working to remove its fuel in case it splits and spills into the surrounding waters.
'Naufragio is a bay with great biological diversity,' Dr Carlos Valle, a professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, told the Wall Street Journal.
'There is a potential risk of its being affected, especially for very large colonies of sea lions and invertebrate species from the coast.'
Officials were keen to downplay the risk of danger to the surrounding area, saying that the 'greatest danger has passed.'
Nonetheless, they are still in the process of removing all the fuel from the ship, with about 12 per cent still left on board.
Ecuador declared the state of emergency on Wedesnday(sic), and the alert 'will allow authorities to have immediate (financial) means to deal with the situation,' a Galapagos National Park spokesman told AFP.
WHAT WAS ON BOARD THE SHIP?
- 10,000 gallons of fuel
- 11 tons of gear oil
- 103 gas cylinders
- 48 tons of asphalt emulsion
Total: 1,925 tons of cargo
Source: Galapagos Digital
originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: Anyafaj
Oh that cannot be good....the need for money and profit will kill us all one of these days...the question is ..will we learn in time ?
originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: Anyafaj
I feel ya man or woman. Sometimes it seems like we actually go out of our way to cause more trouble for ourselves. I really hope they can fix this mess without it infecting that location. That's one of the only places left on the planet that hasn't been dramatically altered by our industrial "progress" and once it's gone we won't get it back.
People really suck sometimes. I also wonder why they were even close to there at all. I would hope we'd be smart enough to avoid going near there for anything other than scientific study of one of our last truly natural places left on earth.
originally posted by: MojaveBurning
My heart plummeted when I saw this headline. It's so awful.
I hope they can get it away from there without spilling out any of its fuel or other contaminants. From your article, this is the third ship this has happened to in the last year. At that rate, seems like only a matter of time before we completely destroy that area.
Humans disgust me more each day. We destroy everything eventually. So very sad.