By IANS
Buenos Aires : The mysterious oil spill detected last week off the coast of Argentina’s southern Patagonia, which killed hundreds of water birds, has been brought under control, officials in southern Chubut province have said.
A thick black oil slick, which was detected by officials last Thursday, covered an area of 24 square kilometres in the Atlantic Ocean near the city of Caleta Cordova. Over 500 waterfowls died in the slick.
“In barely six days, we took very important steps to contain the slick. Today, we can clearly say that it is under control, that there is no type of oil on the water,” Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves was quoted as saying, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Friday.
Neves said that they were going to work hard manually in the 814 metre stretch of the coast still left to clean up.
The governor praised the province’s contingency plan for containing the spill and said judicial officials had opened an investigation to determine where the oil came from and who was responsible.
Officials believe that the slick was the result of an oil leak from a ship’s tank.
Caleta Cordova is the location of an oil harbour from where a large pipeline runs to load tankers far out to sea. Officials have asserted that there were no technical problems registered at the facility or in the pipeline.
The provincial government, meanwhile, filed a criminal complaint against the oil companies operating in the province, but judicial officials have not yet identified who was responsible for the spill.