Oil tankers sunk - Pacific ww2

[spidge]

While the oil tankers of ww2 were much smaller than the Exxon Valdez that decimated Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska, the collective tanker sinkings of ww2 put that ecological disaster to miniscule proportions and insignificance.

Hundreds of shipwrecks from the Second World War are threatening to cause oil spills similar in scale to the Exxon Valdez disaster. Scientists with the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme believe that there are about 1,080 wrecks from the war lying on the floor of the Pacific, including a number of oil tankers (most burnt their cargo when torpedoed yet a number just sank and most have been intact for over 60 years)
In July 2001 a typhoon shifted the Mississinewa, an old US fuel tanker at the bottom of a lagoon off an island near the Philippines, rupturing its corroded hull. The Mississinewa, which was sunk in a suicide attack by a Japanese submarine, spewed out 91,000 litres (20,000 gallons) of oil, polluting the island of Yap as a result. The US Navy plugged the leak and is now preparing to pump out the vessel’s tanks, which are still thought to contain about 10 million litres of oil.
The Mississinewa and another oil tanker, the USS Neosho, which was sunk in 1942 and lies a few hundred miles from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, are together estimated to contain as much oil as the Exxon Valdez, which spilt 42 million litres of oil.


Whilst the Pacific is enormous, these wrecks will be a continuing danger to these fragile environments.

The Bikini Atoll bomb testing post war, sank 250 excess warships in this one location alone and are not, I am led to believe, included in the above figure of 1080.

The amount of munitions dumped in the Pacific, besides those on board the freighters that were sunk is mind boggling. (64 tons were dumped off Guam alone)


These contain the following nasties:
Lead
Cadmium
Chromium
Nickel
Copper
Barium
Red phosphorous
White phosphorous
Strontium
Perchlorates
Polyvinyl chloride
Titanium tetrachloride
Hexachloroethane
Hexachlorobenzene
PCBs
Dioxins
Furans
Lead azide
Mercury fulminateTNT
2,4,6 TNT
Dinitrotoulene
Dinitrobenzene
Tetranitromethance
Aluminum
Ammonium perchlorate.

Does anyone have the figures on the Atlantic?