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More than doubling in a week, China’s worst ever oil spill has closed beaches on the Yellow Sea. Environmental officials advised that the black gooey crude oil poses a ‘severe threat’ to water quality and sea life.
Following a crude oil pipe line explosion and thirty metre high flames, China’s largest port, Dalian, was closed. It was once known as the most livable city in China. Fire fighters were only able to put the flames out after fifteen hours had elapsed.
Drowning in the black goo, one firefighter was dragged ashore by his colleagues. The body was completely coated in thick slippery oil. Wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, he had been attempting to fix an underwater pump.
Nearly 800 fishing and forty oil skimming boats were sent to the area to support the clean-up operation. Over 15kms of oil barriers have been put up.
"Our priority is to collect the spilled oil to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters," said Dai Yulin, Dalian's vice mayor.
The oil has now stretches over a 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) area, even though the State media says no more oil is leaking into the ocean. Around 400,000 gallons of oil spill has been estimated, which is less compared to the 84 – 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
While the China oil spill is a lost smaller than the BP spill, the greater danger in the China spill is that officials, oil company workers and volunteers have no protective clothing, as they try to clean the oily beaches.
"We don't have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks and straw mats," in apparent frustration an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper.
CNPC is Asia’s largest oil and gas producer by volume. The source of the explosion to the pipe line, owned by China National Petroleum Corp., is still not known.
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