Hundreds of birds stricken after oil spill in Rotterdam

THE HAGUE: Animal rescue workers on Monday were frantically cleaning hundreds of birds after an oil spill in the Rotterdam harbour at the weekend, when an oil tanker hit a jetty dumping some 200 tonnes of bunker fuel.

The Norwegian tanker Bow Jubail on Saturday crashed against a jetty in western Europe’s largest port, spilling the heavy bunker fuel into the section of the harbour reserved for offloading petroleum, west of the city.

“We are currently hard at work cleaning hundreds of birds, including swans,” said Anneke Heinecke of the Dutch water management agency Rijkswaterstaat.

“Many of the birds are covered in oil and it’s not easy to catch and clean them,” Heinecke told AFP.

The Rijkswaterstaat, together with other animal aid organisations, set up an “animal hospital” on Monday capable of cleaning some 500 birds, she said.

In total, more than 300 birds have been captured and were in the process of being cleaned, Heinecke said.

By Monday afternoon 100 tonnes of the fuel had been cleaned up with the operation expected to take “several more days,” the Port of Rotterdam said.

“Six special cleaning ships are active in the area,” the harbour said in a statement. “It will take several days for operations to wrap up,” it added.