Volunteers in southern Lebanon begin removing tar from beaches following an oil spill that could endanger marine life.
Lebanon began clearing beaches on Saturday after an oil spill deposited tar over large areas of the coast in the south of the country.
A storm more than a week ago threw a ton of black, sticky material onto nearby Israeli beaches, apparently after it leaked from an oil tanker off the coast of Israel.
Within days the spill had spread to southern Lebanon, where lumps of tar-covered beaches stretched from the border town of Naqura to the southern city of Tire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about $ 14m had been earmarked to clean up the country’s coast, in the biggest disaster Israeli said.
In Lebanon, management of the Tire Coast Nature Reserve, one of the last sandy beaches in the country and an important nesting site for endangered logger head and green sea turtles, said the spill could destroy marine life and biodiversity in the region. danger.
Reserve director Mouin Hamze told reporters that the cleanup will take at least 15 days.
“We will begin removing the tar spots starting from the reserve coast, and hundreds of volunteers will help with the clean-up work,” he said.
The tire coastal nature reserve is home to endangered loggerheads and green sea turtles [Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP]
“The nature reserve suffers from about 2 tonnes of tar, 90 per cent of which is hidden under the sand,” he said.
The protected zone covers 3.8 square kilometers (nearly 1.5 square miles) of beach as well as nearby seawater waters, according to its website.
The reserve was introduced to the Mediterraneanly Protected Areas of Special Protection in 2012.
Hamze had previously said the pollution could continue washing up on Lebanon’s shores for up to three months.
Exploration of the area using drones is not yet complete, but he said the damage was widespread in the south while tar even lay on the beach further north in the capital Beirut.
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokeswoman Andrea Tenenti told news agency DPA that UNIFIL is exploring ways to help Lebanon threaten the threat of an oil spill.
“UNIFIL has been set up by local authorities to see what help can be provided based on our capabilities and equipment. We are examining these requests to see how we can help, ”said Tenenti.