Defusing shipwrecks: The mission to tackle the oil-heavy time bombs under the sea

In January 1942, the German submarine U-123 opened fire on a tanker off the coast of Long Island, New York.

Two torpedoes ripped into the 6,768-gt British supply ship Coimbra (built 1937), but its cargo of lubricating oil remained in its tanks for more than seven decades at the bottom of the Atlantic.

After oil began leaking from the wreck, the US Coast Guard and New York state authorities mounted an operation to remove the oil in 2019.