What a Disaster Reading Activity Week 4

On October the 5th 2011 a ship called ‘Rena’ sunk. It sunk because the Captain took a shortcut but didn’t realize that he ran over some rocks that wrecked the boat. On the boat was containers, most of them were filled with oil and the oil was toxic. There were about 1,700 tonnes of heavy oil and 1,300 containers on the boat.

The oil in the containers killed fish, birds and seals. It was a serious disaster. Some of the containers washed up on the beach of Mount Maunganui and most of the dead birds washed up on the beach by the waves.  On the beach was black little spots that were poison. The oil did serious damage to the sea and it polluted it quite badly and most of the fish and birds died.