Picture credits: Capannelle
in.fondo.al.mar (under the sea) is a journalistic project which uses web-based tools to construct a shared memory on the "toxic ships" scandal and to initiate a participatory investigation on the suspected sinking and dumping of tons of radioactive and chemical waste in the Mediterranean Sea.
The website publishes for the first time all the official data on the incidents obtained through an extensive research conducted on the Lloyd's Register of Shipping in London, alongside archival information gathered from press clippings, dossiers produced by environmental organisations, and specialist websites, in order to produce an open dataset on the case, to be freely downloaded by its users and employed for other projects.
Maps, time lines and other forms of info-visualization, provide the instruments to make sense of this mass of data and identify analogies in the locations and modalities of the incidents, in the declared cargoes and in the ports of arrival and departure of the suspected ships, thus providing a springboard for further investigations.
They have been called "poison ships", "toxic ships", "disposable ships". They are dozens of commercial vessels, which misteriously sank during the last thirty years in the Mediterranean sea. The Aso foundered in 1979, off the city of Locri in Calabria, in Southern Italy; the Rigel deliberately sunken off Reggio Calabria in 1987, the Marco Polo foundered in the Canal of Sicily in 1993, as well as tens of less known incidents which took place in more recent years.
The suspicion that hovers over these accidents is disturbing. The ships would have been deliberately sunk by mafia groups and entrepeneurs without scruples to cheaply dispose of tons of toxic, chemical and radioactive waste and make huge profits. Apart from the mafia, in this traffic governments and secret services would have also participated.
After twenty years of exposés and investigations we are still far from the truth. Even though in most cases the "body of evidence" still lies at the bottom of the sea, overwhelming evidence has been collected on different cases.
Radioactivity traces well above the average have been found on containers and other materials released from some of the suspected ships after the incidents. Traces of caesium and thorium have been detected in fishes and algae near the sites of some incidents. The rate of cancers in some coastal zones of Calabria, the Italian southern region around which many of the incidents took place, are 3 or 4 times above the national average.
Despite the risks this case could pose to human health the sunken ships continue to remain down there, lying on the bottom of the sea, and what they actually contain has not yet been verified.
To counter the inertia of public authorities in.fondo.al.mar (under the sea) aims to be a tool for participatory investigation, which invites users to contribute with relevant information which might help clarify what hides behind these different incidents. We also welcome collaborations with experts in the field of maritime security, toxic waste traffic and environmental protection.
in.fondo.al.mar is a work-in-progress project, which welcomes the contribution users and experts: