Since the oil spill disaster in the Sundarbans on the night of December 9, 2014, many ebbs and flows of the tide have come and gone. The thick and poisonous spilled oil reaches wherever the water reaches during the high tide, via the Sela river (where the disaster originated), Passur and Baleshwari rivers, and the innumerable canals.
The sunken oil tanker Southern Star-7, moored at the Chadpai Range river port since its recovery from the depth of the Sela river, has been surrounded by oil containment rubber booms. Had this been done as soon as the accident occurred, the spread of the oil spill over such a vast area of the Sundarbans could perhaps have been avoided. Furthermore, the clean-up of the oil would have been much easier.
But instead, the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-rich heavy fuel oil (HFO), also known as furnace oil, has spread all over the Sundarbans via the waterways, reaching far into the forest through hundreds of canals.
It had been estimated that about 80 to 100 square kilometres of waterways and coastal vegetation has been affected by the oil pollution, but there are no estimates available at this moment of how much of the interior of the forest has also been affected by the pollution.
The layer of oil slick currently floating on the river is relatively thin, although sunlight and oxygen cannot penetrate even this thin layer and reach the water beneath. This is pushing all aquatic life-forms, including aquatic vegetation and fish, to their demise.
When the oil enters the still waters of the canals, it is forming thick and impenetrable tar-like deposits, rising and lowering with the high and low-tides. Even when the water goes down along the banks during the low-tide, the oil deposit is sticking to the slope of the mud-banks, and oily junk is gathering at the roots of the trees covering their breathing roots, trunks, and leaves.
It looks as if someone had taken a paint-brush dipped in black paint and coloured all the trees. In the words of the forest expert Razzak: “As if a venomous black snake had tightened its coil around the trees of the Sundarbans.” According to another forest expert, Baowali, some of the watering holes used by the tigers, deer, and other animals have also been polluted by oil reaching them during the high tide.
The carcinogenic polyaromatic hydro-carbon in the furnace oil is highly damaging to the liver and skin. Apart from this, the layer of oil prevents sunlight and oxygen from entering the water. It will not be possible for life to exist in places where the oil is stagnating.
The breather roots covered by oil will be of little use to the trees for the purposes of breathing.Crabs, mudskippers, and other invertebrates which make the oil-covered mud their home, are now in danger. Except for one or two dead crabs, no other life forms have been observed in the oil-soaked mud during low tide.
This is the season when many varieties of fish lay their eggs in the Sundarbans -- the high and low tide-flooded sloping banks of the canals is where many fish as well as shrimps lay their eggs and spawn. Also, it won’t be possible for keora and bain trees to bud during the time, as these tiny plants cannot survive in the poisonous oil-filled muddy earth.
Those young plants, whose roots are embedded in oil, will perish within a couple of weeks to a month. However, it’ll take longer for the effect of the oil on fully-grown trees to become manifest. The big trees’ leaves may turn yellow or may even start falling off, and eventually they may even start dying in a few years.
The oil pollution lowers the immune power of the mangrove trees, and as a result, the incidence of the saline water causing top-dying decease that has been inflicting the sundari trees may increase.
The site of the oil spill was the centre of the world’s reservation of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin species. Now that place has become a place of fear -- not only for the dolphins but also for all other land and aquatic creatures.
Since the oil spill, dolphin, crocodile, fish, fishing birds, or any other animal have not been spotted in the area. They have either perished or have moved elsewhere.
They had taken shelter in this area because it was the most suitable place to support them, but now that they’ve been forced to relocate, it’s not certain how long they will survive.
And the state of the human population that live off the forest is like that of the mangrove trees; they can’t just uproot themselves and relocate elsewhere. Especially those whose livelihoods depend on fishing and crab-hunting, have been hit the most. Since the whole thing started, it has not been possible to use fishing nets or ropes.
The oil destroys fishing nets, as well as the crab enclosures and traps. When, in 2011, ships started plying through the Sundarbans, the pollution caused the number of fishes in the river to drop. Now, with the oil spill, not a single fish can be caught any more.
This article was translated by Tibra Ali and first appeared in AlalODulal.org.
