Beneath the ocean lie 8,500 forgotten WWII shipwrecks. Many are still filled with oil

Scattered across the ocean floor worldwide are more than 8,500 shipwrecks classified as potentially polluting, most dating back to World War I and World War II, still carrying an estimated 6 billion gallons of heavy fuel oil within their corroding hulls. As these vessels approach or pass the century mark since sinking, their steel structures continue to weaken, and a growing body of research warns that pollution from these wrecks could reach its highest levels within this decade. Nowhere has this risk been made clearer than in Micronesia, where a series of real-world leaks from sunken World War II ships have already forced evacuations, fishing bans and emergency cleanup operations, offering a preview of what could happen on a much larger scale if a major storm or earthquake were to rupture multiple wrecks at once.How many potentially polluting wrecks exist worldwideAccording to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are an estimated 3 million sunken and abandoned vessels lying on the seabed globally, of which more than 8,500 are classified as potentially polluting wrecks. IUCN notes that most of these wrecks date back to the two world wars and still contain harmf...