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Manado. An official rejected claims on Wednesday that the world’s largest mass dive, held on Sunday and Monday in North Sulawesi, had damaged the area’s marine ecosystem.

“The mass dive did not endanger the marine ecosystem at all because we did not pick an area with large number of animal species,” said Aji Sularso, the Director General of Maritime and Fisheries Supervision.

“Besides, the area is not large and the dive did not take much time.”

He said that some non governmental organizations had questioned the safety of mass dive because they were concerned it would threaten the maritime ecosystem.

“They are asking me silly questions and it shows that they do not believe us and are not optimistic about our achievement to break the world record,” he said. “We are very concerned about the ecosystem and they should not have questioned the safety.”

Aji said that inspections were conducted after the mass diving to make sure the beach bed was safe as well as implementing proper procedures after diving.

“I can make sure that everything on the beach after the mass diving is perfectly fine,” he said.

On Sunday and Monday, divers broke the world record for a mass dive and even held an Independence Day flag raising ceremony underwater.

The organizing committee for Sail Bunaken 2009, the international maritime festival that hosted the record attempt, said the unofficial figure for participants in the event was 2,827 divers because not everyone had registered before the ceremony.

North Sulawesi is rich in coral reefs, which are one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world and host to an extraordinary variety of marine plants and animals. They are also one of the most fragile and endangered ecosystems.