CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 120 of 120

Correct — B, Mauritius. On 25 July 2020 the Japanese-owned, Panama-flagged bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran onto a coral reef off Pointe d'Esny on the south-eastern coast of Mauritius. Fuel oil began escaping from the hull on 6 August, and roughly a thousand tonnes eventually spilled; the slick grew from about 3 square kilometres on 6 August to about 27 by 11 August. Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth declared a state of environmental emergency in that first week of August and appealed for international help, and India, France and Japan sent assistance. The hull broke in two on 15 August with about 166 tonnes of fuel still aboard. The spill struck some of the most sensitive coastline in the western Indian Ocean, including the Blue Bay Marine Park, the Ramsar-listed wetland at Pointe d'Esny and the island reserve of Île aux Aigrettes.

• (a)Maldives — An Indian Ocean island nation, and highly vulnerable to sea-level rise and coral bleaching, but not the site of this incident. No comparable grounding or environmental emergency occurred there in 2020.
• (c)Madagascar — The large island lying west of Mauritius, and a country whose environmental crises are chiefly deforestation and drought on land rather than a marine oil spill.
• (d)Sri Lanka — The chronologically confusing option. Sri Lanka did suffer a major maritime disaster of this kind — the container ship MV X-Press Pearl caught fire and sank off Colombo — but that was in May and June 2021, months after this paper was set, and it involved chemicals and plastic pellets rather than a grounded bulk carrier's fuel oil.

Mauritius is a small island state about 2,000 km off the south-eastern coast of Africa, roughly 900 km east of Madagascar, and its economy rests heavily on tourism and fisheries — both dependent on the reef and lagoon system the spill threatened. India and Mauritius share deep historical ties, and India was among the first responders, sending a technical team and equipment under Mission Sagar. The Wakashio incident became the reference case for the vulnerability of small island developing states to a single shipping accident.

The distractor set is a geography test wrapped around a current-affairs fact: all four are Indian Ocean countries and three of them are islands, so a candidate who has not fixed the event to the country has no way through. The pairing worth carrying is ship to country to year — Wakashio with Mauritius in 2020, and X-Press Pearl with Sri Lanka in 2021 — because the two incidents are close enough in kind that papers set after 2021 use each as the other's distractor. Anchoring to the exam date resolves this item: at the November 2020 exam only the Mauritius spill had happened.

• MV Wakashio, a Japanese-owned, Panama-flagged bulk carrier of about 203,000 tonnes deadweight, grounded on a reef off Pointe d'Esny, Mauritius, on 25 July 2020.
• Oil began leaking on 6 August 2020 and roughly 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil escaped; the slick grew from about 3 to about 27 square kilometres within a week.
• Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth declared a state of environmental emergency and appealed for international assistance.
• The vessel broke in two on 15 August 2020 with about 166 tonnes of fuel still on board.
• Areas affected included the Blue Bay Marine Park, the Ramsar wetland at Pointe d'Esny and Île aux Aigrettes; about 21 km of shoreline required cleaning.

• Confusing the 2020 Wakashio spill in Mauritius with the 2021 X-Press Pearl fire off Sri Lanka.
• Placing Mauritius near the Maldives; it lies far to the south-west, close to Madagascar.
• Assuming the flag state is the owner's country — Wakashio was Japanese-owned but Panama-flagged.

As a country-identification current-affairs item, as a ship-to-incident match, or through India's assistance and its Indian Ocean policy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Mauritius is located in which ocean?

  • (a)Atlantic Ocean
  • (b)Pacific Ocean
  • (c)Indian Ocean
  • (d)Arctic Ocean

  Answer(c) Indian Ocean — about 2,000 km off the south-eastern coast of Africa and some 900 km east of Madagascar.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ramsar Convention deals with the conservation of

  • (a)wetlands
  • (b)migratory birds only
  • (c)coral reefs only
  • (d)tropical forests

  Answer(a) wetlands — the treaty on wetlands of international importance, under which Pointe d'Esny in Mauritius is listed.