Ghost ship full of cannibal rats could be about to crash into Great Britain

[Xithras]

139. Boats and ships have sank for thousands of years.

Asbestos is a natural substance that is harmful to air-breathing creatures with lungs. It isn't going to harm the fish. As for fuel, the ship was being towed when it was lost, so it's extremely unlikely that it had much fuel on board. The two real environmental dangers from a ship this size are going to be PCB's and lead paint, and neither of those are going to be much threat beyond the perimeter of the ship itself.

There are hundreds of thousands of boats and ships littering the worlds seafloors, including modern cargo ships and pleasure vessels, more military ships than you can count, old steamers, and ancient triremes. For as long as we've been sailing, we've been sinking. One more isn't going to ruin the seafloor.

FWIW, the thinking is NOT that it's "too much trouble". Ships are sunk when they become dangers to navigation to REDUCE the chance of adding wrecks to the seafloor. If this thing drifts into a shipping lane and strikes another vessel, there will be two wrecks on the seafloor instead of one. While "cannibal rats" makes a great headline, the real reason for wanting to sink it has to do with protecting ship traffic.