Brazilian researchers have identified WWII shipwrecks as a potential source of oil spills due to illegal resource extraction and ship deterioration.
Alice de Souza and Astrid Prange de Oliveira report for Deutsche Welle.
In short:
- German ships sunk during WWII are believed to be leaking rubber and oil due to illegal salvage efforts in the South Atlantic.
- Over 500 wrecks in the area contain valuable materials, but dismantling them may cause major environmental harm.
- Brazilian scientists warn that these wrecks could lead to oil spills like the 2019 disaster, which remains unexplained.
Key quote:
“An operation dismantles a ship to extract the metal, and rubber and oil can be released as a side-effect, which reach the coast because they are driven by the currents. So the question is not whether the oil will spill, but when it will spill.”
— Luis Ernesto Arruda Bezerra, Institute of Marine Sciences at UFC
Why this matters:
As wrecks deteriorate or are plundered for metals, they pose a growing risk of oil spills that could devastate marine ecosystems, especially near the Brazilian coast, with long-lasting environmental consequences.
