The immediate aftermath of a blast is obvious, says Wilson Perera: the ocean turns murky with blood and is strewn with fish that are missing eyes or other organs. Those fish that are wounded swim off to die elsewhere. Their carcasses wash ashore days later.

“Everything within a 100-metre radius of the blast is destroyed – coral reefs, marine plants and animals,” says Perera.

Perera is a fisher and supplier in Salpayaru, a picturesque fishing village near the city of Trincomalee on the north-eastern coast of Sri Lanka. He says the ocean here teemed with marine life until an increase in blast fishing began destroying its bounty.

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