<p>A fire aboard a cargo ship off Sri Lanka was finally extinguished Tuesday after a 13-day international operation, the navy said.</p>.<p>Tonnes of microplastic granules from its cargo have inundated Sri Lanka's beaches, forcing a fishing ban and sparking fears of ecological devastation.</p>.<p>Experts from Dutch salvage company SMIT boarded the MV X-Press Pearl and reported massive flooding of the engine rooms.</p>.<p>Navy spokesman Captain Indika de Silva said the stern of the 186-metre (610-feet) long container carrier had gone down by about a metre because of the flooding.</p>.<p>"It is not unusual for the vessel to trim by aft (tilt to the rear) when water sprayed on deck settles in the engine room," Silva told AFP.</p>.<p>He said the spraying of water was stopped to prevent further flooding, but some areas of the ship were still too hot to carry out a complete examination of the vessel, which caught fire on May 20.</p>.<p>Sri Lanka's navy was joined by India's coastguard and tugs brought in by SMIT to battle the flames which destroyed much of the nearly 1,500 containers the vessel was carrying.</p>.<p>The Singapore-registered ship had 25 tonnes of nitric acid and other chemicals as well as 28 containers of plastic raw material, much of which fell into the sea.</p>.<p>The Marine Environment Protection Authority chief Dharshani Lahandapura said they were still assessing the ecological damage, but believed it was the "worst ever in my lifetime".</p>.<p>The three-month-old ship was heading to Colombo from Gujarat, India.</p>.<p>It had previously visited Qatar and Dubai and was due to go to Malaysia and Singapore after calling at Colombo.</p>
<p>A fire aboard a cargo ship off Sri Lanka was finally extinguished Tuesday after a 13-day international operation, the navy said.</p>.<p>Tonnes of microplastic granules from its cargo have inundated Sri Lanka's beaches, forcing a fishing ban and sparking fears of ecological devastation.</p>.<p>Experts from Dutch salvage company SMIT boarded the MV X-Press Pearl and reported massive flooding of the engine rooms.</p>.<p>Navy spokesman Captain Indika de Silva said the stern of the 186-metre (610-feet) long container carrier had gone down by about a metre because of the flooding.</p>.<p>"It is not unusual for the vessel to trim by aft (tilt to the rear) when water sprayed on deck settles in the engine room," Silva told AFP.</p>.<p>He said the spraying of water was stopped to prevent further flooding, but some areas of the ship were still too hot to carry out a complete examination of the vessel, which caught fire on May 20.</p>.<p>Sri Lanka's navy was joined by India's coastguard and tugs brought in by SMIT to battle the flames which destroyed much of the nearly 1,500 containers the vessel was carrying.</p>.<p>The Singapore-registered ship had 25 tonnes of nitric acid and other chemicals as well as 28 containers of plastic raw material, much of which fell into the sea.</p>.<p>The Marine Environment Protection Authority chief Dharshani Lahandapura said they were still assessing the ecological damage, but believed it was the "worst ever in my lifetime".</p>.<p>The three-month-old ship was heading to Colombo from Gujarat, India.</p>.<p>It had previously visited Qatar and Dubai and was due to go to Malaysia and Singapore after calling at Colombo.</p>