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Environment

Thailand oil spill: governor declares state of emergency on beach

Disaster deals a setback to tourism recovery from pandemic

[https]
A worker cleans oil spilled from an undersea pipeline leak off
Thailand's eastern coast at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province.  
(c) Reuters
January 30, 2022 03:17 JST | Thailand
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BANGKOK (AP) -- The governor of a province in eastern Thailand on
Saturday declared a state of emergency after an oil slick washed up
on a sand beach, shutting down restaurants and shops in a setback for
the pandemic-hit tourism industry.

Some 20-50 tons of oil are estimated to have leaked Tuesday night in
the Gulf of Thailand from an undersea hose used to load tankers at an
offshore mooring point owned by the Star Petroleum Refining Co.

The leak was stopped within hours, the company said, but efforts to
keep an oil slick from reaching the Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong
province southeast of Bangkok were unsuccessful, and some oil began
spilling onto the sand there on Saturday morning.

A major part of the slick remains at sea and there are concerns it
may hit Koh Samet, a popular tourist island that's just beginning to
recover from the coronavirus pandemic slump along with the rest of
the country.

Aircraft have been dropping chemicals to disperse the oil and
deploying floating booms to trap it so that it can be skimmed from
the surface and removed.

Rayong Gov. Channa Iamsaeng on Saturday declared the stricken beach a
disaster area and ordered it closed for swimmers and commercial
activities.

Some 200 navy personnel and 150 people from Star Petroleum were
helping in the cleanup with equipment to absorb and skim the oil,
while two backhoes dug a trench to capture the incoming oil.

The beachside area is largely dependent on tourists. It has been
suffering economically from the pandemic that has kept visitors away,
and the spill will make recovery harder. The local fishing industry
was also affected by the pollution.

The Thai chapter of the environmental action group Greenpeace said
the spill was the second involving Star Petroleum after an incident
in 1997.

It issued a statement demanding that the oil company show clear
accountability for the accident, pay for the cleanup and issue a
complete report on the economic, social and environmental impacts of
the spill.

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