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‘Sunken ship spewing more oil along Orissa coast’
A fresh oil spill, probably from a Mongolian ship that sank last month, has blackened part of the Orissa coastline in an area close to the nesting site of rare Olive Ridley sea turtles, say experts.
A fresh oil spill, probably from a Mongolian ship that sank last month, has blackened part of the Orissa coastline in an area close to the nesting site of rare Olive Ridley sea turtles, say experts.
A team of two scientists of the Dehradun-based government-run Wild Life Institute of India (WII) said they visited some areas of the coastline Monday and found a fresh oil spill over a one-and-a-half kilometer stretch near Paradip port.
Basudev Tripathy, one of the WII scientists, said the oil spill appears to be very fresh.
“We spotted an oil spill some 10 km south of Paradip port. It seems very fresh. It was along a one-and-a-half km stretch of the beach,” Tripathy said.
“We have collected samples for tests,” he said.
Tripathy and his scientist colleague B.C. Chaudhury had gone to the site as part of their routine survey on endangered Olive Ridley turtles.
A local forest official, Saubhagaya Sahoo, also said black oil was seen floating on the sea surface a few kilometers away from the port area.
