Nigerian communities struggle with oil spills

Indonesia rescuers hunt for missing after 43 slain

MARTHA Alfred used to harvest 20 bags of cassava each year before an oil spill forced her to abandon her field and hawk roasted fish to survive.

Her smallholding at Ikarama-Okordia, a community in southern Nigeria’s Bayelsa state, became unfit for growing crops after crude from a nearby Shell facility spewed into the environment last August, she says.

Today, the 33-year-old mother of two looks angry and helpless, her woes compounded by downpours during the last rainy season that flooded her land.

“The soil has become infertile because of the spills,” Alfred told AFP.

“Each time I remember the spills and now the floods, my heart bleeds,” she said.

“People from Shell came and promised to do something for me. Up until now I have not heard from them.”

Ikarama-Okordia, a collection of villages, is one of the most polluted sites in the oil and gas-rich Niger Delta.

A major pipeline that passes through the fishing and farming community of 50,000 people has been the subject of spills and militant attacks for over 20 years.

Shell said it recorded a total of 21 spills in the area between 2009 and 2018.

Overall, rights groups say that millions of barrels of crude have leaked out across the Niger Delta region over the years.

The oil companies blame most of the leaks on sabotage from local residents and criminal gangs stealing the crude.

But under Nigerian laws, the firms are obliged to clean up all spills whatever their cause.

Villagers argue some spills are due to operational factors.

INDONESIAN rescuers mounted a desperate search Friday for those missing after flash floods and landslides sparked by torrential rains killed at least 43 people across the Jakarta region, leaving whole districts under water and thousands homeless.

Around a dozen people were still unaccounted for after record rains that started on New Year’s Eve pounded the capital and left swathes of the megalopolis, home to some 30 million, a wasteland of overturned cars and damaged buildings.

Some 400,000 residents have been evacuated to temporary shelters with many unable to return to their waterlogged homes, according to authorities.

“We’re encouraging people whose houses are still inundated to go to a safer place,” said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo.

The agency said 43 people had been confirmed dead in Greater Jakarta and neighbouring Lebak regency in the south of Java island.

Waters had receded in many areas and power, which had been shut off across many districts, was being restored.

In hard-hit Bekasi, on the outskirts of the city, swampy streets were littered with debris and crushed cars lying on top of each other -- with waterline marks reaching as high as buildings’ second floors.