10 May 2019

Efforts will begin...in Solomon Islands to refloat a wrecked ship at the centre of an environmental disaster.

...[T]he Solomon Islands Disaster Management Office said the vessel will be refloated and towed from the reef.

Its director, Loti Yates, said the process, which is being led by a salvager contracted by the shipowner's insurer, will take around three days.

"It is a huge and very, very difficult operation," he said.

...Mr Yates said investigations by the Solomon Islands government into the disaster had been obstructed by a missing data drive taken from the ship by its owner.

He said requests for the data - which is too big to transfer online - to be sent physically had gone unanswered....