Who’ll pay for the wrecked lives?

Justice eludes Kerala’s fishers as owners of sunken vessel MSC Elsa 3 cap their liability at a paltry payout.

The gulf between corporate indifference and State expectation could not be more stark – and Kerala’s coastal communities are caught in the middle. MSC Elsa 3 sank off Kerala’s coast on May 25, 2025, carrying over 643 containers, including hazardous cargo, plastic nurdles, and tonnes of fuel. Its wreck turned the Arabian Sea into a floating graveyard of microplastics, chemical debris, and stranded cargo.

On one side, the owners of MSC Elsa 3, registered through shell companies in Liberia, Panama, and Switzerland, announced that their liability for the disaster would be capped at a mere Rs 132 crore. On the other side, the Kerala government has filed a claim exceeding Rs 9,531 crore for environmental devastation, marine pollution, and economic losses to over one lakh fishing families. In between, tens of thousands of men and women whose lives, livelihoods, and dignity have been upended watch helplessly as the legal and corporate machinery grind on, largely indifferent to their suffering.

Along beaches from Alappuzha to Kollam, nets remain knotted with nurdles, engines corroded, and catches have collapsed. Families who once relied on the sea now see it as a threat, and the corporate announcement of a paltry liability fund adds insult to injury.

Invoking Section 352A of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, and the International Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, MSC Elsa 3’s owners established a
‘Limitation Fund’ of Rs 132 crore to cover all claims. Human tragedy and ecological devastation are reduced to a neat number, shielding global assets while the sea exacts its ongoing toll. Catastrophe becomes a legal abstraction; suffering becomes optional.

For Kerala’s coastal communities, this cap is a profound insult. Families sit
on debris-strewn beaches, watching waves with a mixture of fear and resignation. Small cargo owners scramble to recover losses, sometimes attempting to detain sister vessels docking at Vizhinjam port in Thiruvananthapuram, only to confront the overwhelming asymmetry of legal power and corporate might.

The Kerala government’s claim lays bare the scale of the disaster: Rs 8,626 crore for pollution-related damage, Rs 378 crore for environmental restoration, and Rs 526 crore for losses to fishers. Yet, even this robust demand collides with procedural contradictions. Victims must appear in court or hire legal representatives to lodge claims – a near-impossible task for tens of thousands scattered along 590 km of coastline, most of whom lack English proficiency, legal knowledge, or financial resources. Justice, ostensibly offered, is effectively denied.

The human cost of MSC Elsa 3 is visible at every turn. Families patch nets, repair engines, and wade back into contaminated waters, clinging to livelihoods that are steadily eroding. Clean-up operations involving over 600 personnel and 300 volunteers have recovered over 60 tonnes of nurdles, but thousands more remain. Oil slicks drift offshore, while dolphins, whales, and other marine life wash ashore, likely poisoned by microplastics and chemical residues. Fisheries markets have collapsed under fears of contamination. The sea, once life-giving, has become a vector of devastation.

The risk of a precedent

The fallout has a familiar imprint – global companies leveraging international conventions to minimise liability, states caught between commercial interests and citizen welfare, and communities
left to navigate an alien legal labyrinth.

The exclusionary claims process compounds the injustice. Forcing families to petition courts individually guarantees that only a fraction will succeed, minimising corporate payouts while maximising human suffering. Civil society warns that this is deliberate: multinational shipping corporations routinely use procedural complexity to shield themselves from accountability, leaving local communities to bear the true cost.

Kerala’s fisherfolk are being sacrificed at the altar of global commerce. Livelihoods and dignity are collateral damage in a battle between corporate calculation and state ambivalence. What is urgently needed is not rhetoric but action: simplified claims mechanisms, transparent environmental assessments, and a government willing to confront corporate law and international conventions with the authority of citizen welfare.

MSC Elsa 3 is no longer just a sunken vessel. It is a test of India’s maritime governance, environmental accountability, and justice for vulnerable communities. If the state allows a multinational corporation
to walk away after devastating its coasts, the precedent will be catastrophic: future disasters will be met with token payouts, communities abandoned,
and ecosystems irreversibly damaged.

As waves lap against the shores, Kerala’s fisherfolk wait – not for legal technicalities or corporate statements, but for justice measured in the restoration of life, livelihood, and dignity. The outcome of this struggle will define India’s maritime and environmental accountability for years to come.

(The writer is a South India- based journalist who has chronicled rural distress and environmental struggles)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.