Description

Colombo DIstrict court has issued two injunctions order against the SL Deshya Youtube channel and Youtuber Darshana Hadungoda on 26th April effective until 10th May of 2023. The order was issued by the Colombo District Magistrate Poornima Perera after taking into consideration complaints filed by the three persons from the Attorney General’s Department including a solicitor general. They have allegedly complained that Darshana has published false information on his youtube channel regarding the MV X-Press Pearl containership explosion. MV X-Press Pearl ship which carried 1,486 containers, including hazards such as nitric acid, chemicals, cosmetics and low-density polyethylene pellets. The vessel belongs to the X-press Feeder/ Sea Consortium group which operates out of Singapore. The vessel voyage was from Malaysia to Qatar and returned back to Malaysia. On 11th May 2021 ship crew discovered a nitric acid leak from a container which was loaded from Jebel Ali port (UAE), at that time the ship departed from the Hazira port (India) to arrive at Colombo port. According to the X-Press Feeder they have requested from the Hamad and Hazira ports to offload leaking cargo, but the ports authorities denied it, saying they have not enough facilities or expertise to immediately handle the issue. Hence, the cargo ship proceeded to its next stop, Colombo port. Vessel has arrived at Colombo port on 19th May, anchored outharbour and waited for permission from the harbour master. But the vessel was not issued an emergency regarding the acid leaking. On 20th May it was reported that the ship caught fire and the Sri lanka Navy and Port authority boarded the ship to check what caused the fire. They have found that the fire was caught due to the mix of chemicals. On 25th May a huge explosion took place inside of the vessel and afternoon containers loaded in the cargo ship started to drop off to the sea. Also, X-press Pearl started to shrink. This huge disaster has largely impacted the shore area from Negombo to Colombo. Also Negombo Is an area where most of the people do fishing as their livelihood. On 29th April Sri Lanka's Attorney General Sanjaya Ratnam said to the paper article that they are filing a lawsuit in Singapore to claim the compensation.