a drink, but twelve people stayed on the ship
Suddenly, at 11.38 p.m., there was a big explosion und the ship, and a hole as big as a car appeared in one side of it. Everyone had to hurry to leave the ship. Eleven people got off the ship, but one. a photographer called Fernando Pereira, went back to get his cameras. Then there was a second explosion. Pereira could not get off the ship, and he died there.
Soon the story was news all over the world. People in New Zealand and in many other countries helped the police with information. After a few days the New Zealand police found and took away two French people, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur. They were working for the French army, and they helped with the attack on the Rainbow Warrior
At first the French government said that they knew nothing about the attack. But in September 1985. Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally said that the divers attacked the ship after the French government told them to do it. Mafart and Prieur had to go to prison for ten years, but in fact they left after three years. France paid New Zealand seven million dollars because of the attack
In August 1985 Greenpeace brought the Rainbow Warrior up from the bottom of the sea, but it could not sail again What could they do with it? In the end, they took it to the Cavalli Islands, near the north of New Zealand's North Island. There they left the ship on the bottom of the sea Now sea plants grow on the Rainbow Warrior and fish with bright colours swim in and out of her. You can go out on a boat and dive down to see the ship
on 10 July 1989, exactly four years later, Greenpeace showed the world its new ship Rainbow Warrior II. Now when Greenpeace wants to protest about bad things that are happening all over the world, this new ship can take them there.