A decommissioned aircraft carrier had been drifting off Brazil for months. Despite appeals from environmentalists, the ghost ship has now been sunk.
Brazil’s navy has sunk a ghost ship in Brazilian waters that had been wandering around for months and was equipped with toxic asbestos sheets. “The Brazilian Navy proceeded with the necessary technical competence and safety,” the Navy said in a statement on Friday (local time).
According to this, logistical, operational, ecological and economic losses for the Brazilian state should be avoided. The decommissioned aircraft carrier “São Paulo” had been taken to an area 350 kilometers off the Brazilian coast that legally still belongs to Brazil. The sea is around 5,000 meters deep there.
“Environmental damage is incalculable”
The former aircraft carrier has been adrift at sea off the state of Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil for several months. The Turkish company “Sök” bought it in 2021. But when the 265-meter-long ship approached the Mediterranean Sea from Rio de Janeiro, Turkey revoked permission to dock. It was brought back to Brazil, where it was also banned from docking because of the environmental risk. “Sök” threatened to abandon the ship.
Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama said in January that the aircraft carrier, once owned by the French Navy, is not carrying toxic cargo but does contain asbestos insulating panels. The authority suggested disposing of the ship in an environmentally friendly way in an approved shipyard. Now it was sunk, environmentalists criticized this.
“The environmental damage caused by the sinking is unpredictable, but the Brazilian Navy’s decision will certainly have an impact on marine life and coastal communities,” said a joint statement from the organizations “Greenpeace”, “Sea Shepherd” and “Basel Action Network”. Accordingly, Brazil violates three international agreements.
