World News for Students of English

04-06-2021 07:00

Sri Lanka faces environmental disaster as a cargo ship carrying chemicals has been on fire off the coast for days.

The Singapore-registered ship was carrying chemicals and cosmetics, and it’s been on fire for more than a week. If it sinks, hundreds of tons of oil could leak into the sea, having an adverse impact on marine life. The Sri Lankan navy is working to try to put the fire out, amid fears of a major environmental disaster, and they have been removing debris from the beaches.

Although oil is coating the beaches, the bigger problem at the moment is the debris, which is mostly tiny plastic pellets. The pellets float and eventually break up in the sea, which means that they will release a lot of tiny plastic pieces that are detrimental to marine life.

Officials are planning to begin testing air and water quality, and fishing has been banned for now.

Difficult words: adverse (having a negative or harmful effect on something), debris (pieces of something which is broken), pellet (a small hard ball or tube-shaped piece of any substance), detrimental (tending to cause harm).

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