Oil spill threatens Pacific islanders' food supply

Tens of thousands of litres of oil from the wreck of an American tanker sunk by a Japanese suicide submarine during World War II is threatening the food supply and ecology of the Federated States of Micronesia.

A team of scuba divers from Guam was on its way to Ulithi, part of the Pacific island chain, to try to plug the leak in USS Mississinewa.

Oil is leaking into the lagoon, on which the 700 islanders rely for their food supply, at more than 2,000 litres an hour. The leak is thought to have started about a week ago after the wreck changed position during a storm.

The Mississinewa had 2million litres of oil on board when it went down in the lagoon in 1944. It was the only American naval ship to be sunk by a kaiten, a one-man Japanese suicide submarine, during the war.

Environmental experts fear that the spill could cause an ecological disaster in the area.

The United States Navy has denied that it is responsible for the leak. A spokesman said: "It was sunk during the war and I don't think you can point the finger at anyone. It is just something that happened and now we have to figure out the best way to deal with it."

Lolly Walsh, a social worker in Guam who has relatives living on Ulithi, said she understood that the oil could be seen from the shore of the 460-square-kilometre lagoon, the world's fourth largest.

Ulithi and its neighbouring islands, with a land area of only 4.6 square kilometres, rely on the lagoon for fish. She feared the spill would affect the food supply.

"They are going to starve. I can't imagine what they are going through," she told the Pacific Daily News on Guam.

Ulithi was briefly the largest US naval base during the lead-up to the invasion of Okinawa. At one stage 600 vessels were moored in the lagoon.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0108/25/world/world5.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 24, 2001