Hong Kong cleans up beaches smothered by palm oil spill
HONG KONG: Hong Kong stepped up efforts on Wednesday to clean up a massive palm oil spill, with authorities scooping up more than 90 tonnes of foul-smelling, styrofoam-like clumps in one of the worst environmental disasters to blight the territory’s waters.
Dead fish, shells, rocks, plastic bottles and other rubbish could still be found coated with globules of palm oil on beaches across the Chinesecontrolled territory six days after the spill caused after two vessels collided in the Pearl River estuary.
The government said it had scooped up 93 tonnes of oil waste, most of it congealed, and the amount left floating on the sea surface had fallen significantly.
Stretches of some of Hong Kong’s most popular beaches were still smothered with white clumps of jellylike palm oil on Wednesday and an accompanying sour stench.
The spill has sparked outrage among some residents and environmentalists and comes just a year after mountains of rubbish washed up on Hong Kong’s beaches, with labels and packaging indicating most of it had come from mainland China.
The government has closed 13 beaches since Sunday, a day after it said it had been informed of the spill by mainland authorities. The Marine Department confirmed happened on Thursday. the collision Environmental groups have said the size of the spill could bring severe ecological consequences, although the government said preliminary tests showed few traces of areas.
Samantha Lee, conservation manager at the World Wildlife Fund in Hong Kong, said 1,000 tonnes of palm oil spilled into the water after the vessels collided, out of a total of 9,000 tonnes.
Media quoted the Environment Bureau as saying the government was discussing the legal liability for the disaster with the shipping company involved, which it declined to identify.
The impact on the territory’s marine life, which includes the endangered Chinese white dolphins — also known as pink dolphins —was not immediately clear.
On Pui O beach on Lantau Island, large stinking clumps of congealed palm oil dotted the shoreline, and a rock formation at one end that children love to climb was coated in the slippery substance. oil in affected