Lukeson Chekani recalls seeing an inky-black mass spreading across the ocean. It was late last year when a magnitude-7.0 earthquake had just struck his home of Solomon Islands, the ABC reports.
“At that time when we looked at the shore and sea – it was black,” he said.
Two boys jumped into canoes to inspect the damage.
“When the boys paddled out, they saw the oil still bubbling up,” Mr Chekani told ABC’s The Pacific program.
The exact source of the oil spill is unknown, but locals suspect the seismic activity caused a leak from one of the more than 100 shipwrecks scattered underwater along the Solomon Islands coastline.
Guadalcanal island in Solomon Islands saw some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific during World War II.
So many Japanese and allied ships and airplanes were sunk in the stretch of water near Guadalcanal that it’s now called Iron Bottom Sound.
It has been almost 80 years since the end of the war, but its impacts are still being felt.
The shipwrecks can be a source of income for locals who charge tourists a fee to access the sites.
But the sunken warships are rusting through and could have a detrimental effect – not just on the marine life, but local livelihoods.
The full story is here.
