Miami, Florida –

Vibrant fisheries, some of the world’s largest coral reefs, desalination plants that provide drinking water to millions of people. They all face the danger of fertilizer and oil leaking into the Red Sea after a cargo ship sank under attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

officials said Saturday M/V Rubima, A Belize-flagged vessel reportedly carrying 22,000 tons of toxic fertilizer sank after taking on water during the February 18 attack.

Even before sinking into the depths of the ocean, the ship leaked heavy fuel, causing an 18-mile (30-kilometer) long oil slick in the waterway, which is vital for the transport of goods and energy to Europe.

Since November last year, the Houthis have repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza. They often target ships with weak or no clear links to Israel.

The U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, recently warned that an “environmental disaster” is brewing. Ian Ralby, founder of maritime security company IR Consilium, said it had nothing to do with the size of the ship’s dangerous cargo but everything to do with the Red Sea’s unique natural features and uses.

Concerns about the sinking of the Red Sea are heightened by its unique cyclic water pattern, which is essentially a giant lagoon with water flowing northward, to Egypt’s Suez Canal in the winter and to the Gulf of Aden in the summer.

“What leaks into the Red Sea will stay in the Red Sea,” Larbi said. “There are so many ways it can be hurt.”

Oil can clog the system

Saudi Arabia has been building the world’s largest network of desalination plants for decades, and entire cities like Jeddah rely on the facilities for nearly all of their drinking water. Oil can clog the air intake system and cause costly damage to brine conversion.

The Red Sea is also an important source of seafood, especially in Yemen, where fisheries were the second-largest export after oil before the civil war between the Houthis and Yemen’s Sunni government.

Larbi has been studying the vulnerability of the Red Sea to a potentially worse maritime tragedy: FSO is safer, A dilapidated oil tanker carrying more than 1 million barrels of crude oil had been anchored off the coast of Yemen for years until its cargo was successfully transferred to another ship last year.

Although the amount of oil ruby lake The amount of the leak is unknown, but Ralby estimates it does not exceed 7,000 barrels.Although this is only a small part of safer load, it leaked much more oil than a Japanese-owned ship, If the tide is flowing, In 2020, the vessel crashed off Mauritius, causing millions of dollars in damage and damaging the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen.

More difficult to grasp is the risk posed by the 22,000 tons of fertilizer released by the Djibouti Port Authority. ruby lake sank, saying the ship was in transit at the time of the attack.if ruby lake Still intact underwater, the impact would be a slow trickle rather than a massive release, Larbi said.

Fertilizers fuel algae blooms like those seen every year along the Texas Gulf Coast because nutrient runoff from farms, urban lawns and industrial waste is much greater. The result is a loss of oxygen, suffocation of marine life and the creation of so-called “dead zones”.

Coral reefs in danger

Some of the world’s most colorful and largest coral reefs in the Red Sea are at risk. Some of these are major tourist attractions and are increasingly the subject of important scientific research because of their apparent resistance to rising sea temperatures that have destroyed coral reefs elsewhere in the ocean.

However, the impact of the incident can be controlled Rubima’s Larbi fears this could be a harbinger of worse things to come. He said most container ships have withdrawn from the Red Sea waterway since the Houthis began targeting ships in the region over Israel’s war with Hamas. What remains, he said, are poorly maintained ships, tankers and bulk carriers that pose greater environmental risks.

“With fewer and fewer container ships to target, the likelihood of another leak with a huge environmental impact increases significantly,” Larbi said.