LEBANON: Israel grants permission to Lebanese Environment Ministry to conduct aerial survey of oil spill

Record ID: 344123

  • Title: LEBANON: Israel grants permission to Lebanese Environment Ministry to conduct aerial survey of oil spill
  • Date: 30th August 2006
  • Summary: (BN11) BEIRUT, LEBANON (AUGUST 29, 2006) (REUTERS) MORE OF AERIAL VIEWS OF BEIRUT COAST
  • Embargoed: 14th September 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVABQHOW1U1CLACG7YS8FUZ8HF16
  • Story Text: Lebanon's Environment Ministry conducted an aerial survey of Beirut's coastline in order to asses the extent of the damage caused by an oil spill last month.
    The oil slick, which occurred after Israel bombed a power plant in southern Lebanon during its war with Hizbollah guerrillas, caused heavy fuel oil to settled along a 140-km (87-mile) stretch of coast.
    Lebanon's Environment Ministry was granted permission to conduct the aerial survey on a U.N. helicopter by the Israeli authorities, who continue their air and sea blockade of Lebanon.
    "What we have seen mainly is that there is no oil underwater in the sea, all the oil which is there is at the coastline," said Georges Pinier, an environmental expert.
    Israeli jets hit storage tanks at the Jiyyeh power plant south of Beirut on July 13 and 15, causing up to 10,000-15,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean Sea and cover the coastline with sludge.
    Underwater video footage recorded by Greenpeace shows large amounts of the oil slick off the Lebanese coast has sunk, coating the seabed with a suffocating carpet of oil that is up to 10 cm thick, underwater Greenpeace footage shows.
    Beirut Resident, Abdo Erde, spends most of his free time on the beach, contributing to the cleanup effort.
    "All the fuel that was in the tanks [at the Jiyyeh power plant] reached the Lebanese shore. This formed a number of layers of oil in many places which has reached a depth of around one metre. There is clean sand but there are layers of oil in between," he said.
    Israel's ongoing sea and air blockade continues to slow the arrival of equipment and experts for the cleanup operation.
    The spill is the biggest environmental catastrophe in Lebanon's history and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has compared it with a 1999 disaster off the coast of France, when the Erika tanker spilled an estimated 13,000 tonnes of oil into the Atlantic Ocean.
    The spill threatens marine species such as Bluefin tuna and sea turtles, ecologists and UNEP say, including the green turtle which is endangered in the Mediterranean.
    Kuwait and Norway have sent chemicals and equipment to clean up the oil, mostly heavy fuel which is tough to remove.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register