Minister of State Nalaka Godahewa has stated that obtaining compensation for the damage caused by the ship that caught fire in front of the Colombo harbour has become a problem due to the inadequacy of local naval laws and technology required for rescue operations in the country.

There are no companies in the country that carry out rescue operations at sea and there are legal impediments to setting up such companies, he further said.

He added that the same things will happened to this ship as the New Diamond ship that caught fire a few months ago.

He said that since Sri Lanka did not have an agency to take responsibility for the rescue of the ship, the responsibility for the rescue was taken over by other countries and that the rescue of the New Diamond was also carried out by a Singaporean company.

He said that Sri Lanka received only Rs. 400 million from the rescue and could not earn any income from the rescue of the ship.