loading…
Sao Paulo aircraft carrier sunk by the Brazilian Navy. Photo/Military-Today
BRASILIA – Brazil has drowned aircraft carrier which was decommissioned in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday. The aircraft carrier Sao Paulo, nicknamed the “30,000 ton toxic pack”, is known as a ghost ship because it has been floating at sea for months without a crew.
The sinking of the ship was carried out by the Brazilian Navy despite concerns by environmental groups that the aging carrier contained toxic materials.
“The planned and controlled sinking occurred in the late afternoon on Friday, approximately 350 km (220 miles) off the coast of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean, in an area with an estimated depth of 5,000 meters (16,000 feet),” the Brazilian Navy said in a statement, as quoted by AFP, Saturday (4/2/2023).
The decision to sink the six-decade-old Sao Paulo aircraft carrier comes after Brazilian authorities tried in vain to find a port willing to welcome the ship.
Also read: 3 months of floating, Brazil will sink the ghost aircraft carrier
Although defense officials said they would sink the ship in the “safest area”, environmentalists attacked the decision, saying the warship contained tons of asbestos, heavy metals and other toxic materials that could leach into the water and contaminate the chains. seafood.
The group The Basel Action Network has asked Brazil’s newly elected President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who took office last month pledging to reverse soaring environmental damage under far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro — to immediately stop plans to sink the ship.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a coalition of environmental, labor and human rights organisations, has described the planned sinking of the Sao Paulo in Brazil as a potential “state-sponsored environmental crime”.
The Sao Paulo was built in the late 1950s in France, whose Navy used it for 37 years under the name Foch. This ship has earned a place in 20th century Naval history.
Sao Paulo took part in France’s first nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1960s and served in Africa, the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia from the 1970s to the 1990s.
