Sri Lanka is facing one of the worst environmental crises in its history as tons of potentially toxic debris from a fire aboard a container ship blanket miles of its western coastline.

The South Asian country’s military said it had subdued the blaze aboard the MV X-Press Pearl over the weekend, after more than a week of raging flames and billowing black smoke. But officials and scientists warn that the maritime disaster is far from over, with billions of plastic pellets washing up on beaches up to 75 miles to the south.

As Sri Lankan sailors scrape the debris from beaches and the ship smolders, scientists are trying to determine how far the flotsam will travel and what the damage will be.

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