A US-based expert claimed Monday that swarms of Chinese warships have been dumping human waste and wastewater in a disputed part of the South China Sea for years, producing algae blooms that have destroyed coral reefs and imperilled fish in an impending disaster.

According to Liz Derr, CEO of Simularity Inc, a software company that develops artificial intelligence technologies for satellite imagery analysis, satellite images taken over the last five years show how human waste, sewage, and wastewater have accumulated and caused algae in a cluster of reefs in the Spratlys region where hundreds of Chinese fishing ships have anchored in batches.

She stated during a Philippine online news conference on China’s operations in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed almost in its whole, that at least 236 ships were sighted in the atoll, known internationally as Union Banks, on June 17 alone.