Forgotten wrecks are a time bomb | DW Documentary
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a fascinating watch in threads on leaking wrecks and oil spills.
What it is
DW Documentary on the roughly 6,300 ships sunk in World War II that are now rusting and leaking oil into the seas. Scientists investigate contamination and the risk of a huge oil spill.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2020 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec mchem · 2020-09 · on “Russia’s ‘slow-motion Chernobyl’ at sea”
[this video] - The DW documentary on the matter. A fascinating watch. It is a shame that the economics do not play out in such a way that recovery and resale is feasible. Sadly, I do not expect most governments to be as proactive as Norway’s on the matter. The documentary suggests that even covering a wreck with sand as a preventative measure costs 10s of millions of €s. Surely an opportunity for a lower cost solution exists here?
Cites kd913 · 2020-10 · on “An oil tanker with 60M gallons of oil aboard is currently sinking [video]”
I was watching a video about how there are thousands of ships (6300) sunk from the past which did not have oil leached from their tanks. These have been converted to basically ticking time bombs as the metal and fuel tanks corrode. The amount of oil in these sunk ships is difficult to estimate, but even on a light estimate resulted in a wide-spread ecological disaster. As usual the response from 95% of governments out there is simply to bury their heads to the problem. Source from DW Documentaries ( [this video] )
Cites emn13 · 2021-08 · on “Plants, heavy metals, and the lingering scars of World War I”
Fortunately, it's pretty likely that many of those toxins won't be particularly harmful in low doses; but the stress isn't good, that's for sure. A similar (worldwide) problem are all the maritime shipwrecks stemming from that period: [LINK] [LINK] [this video]