Thai beach declared disaster area as oil from leaking pipeline washes ashore

A state of emergency has been declared in a province of Thailand after an oil slick washed onto shore and left the beach completely blackened.

Some 20-50 tonnes was estimated to have leaked on Tuesday night in the Gulf of Thailand.

The oil came from an undersea hose used to load tankers at an offshore mooring point owned by Star Petroleum Refining.

Whole the leak itself was stopped within hours, efforts to stop an oil slick reaching Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province, southeast of Bangkok, were unsuccessful.

Oil began spilling onto the sand this morning, forcing restaurants and shops to close their doors in another setback for the nation’s tourism industry.

A major part of the slick remains at sea and there are concerns it may hit Koh Samet, a popular tourist island just beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, 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 governor Channa Iamsaeng 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 clean-up with equipment to absorb and skim the oil, while two diggers created 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 clean-up and issue a complete report on the economic, social and environmental impacts of the spill.

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