R&I – FS
An oil spill in eastern Ecuador has reached a protected area of the nation’s Amazon rainforest and contaminated a river that supplies water to Indigenous communities, Ecuador’s environment ministry said.
Nearly two hectares (five acres) of a protected area of the Cayambe-Coca National Park have been contaminated, as well as the Coca River – one of the biggest in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The park of some 400,000 hectares (988,420 acres) is home to a wide variety of animals, including red brocket deer and various amphibians, and holds important water reserves.
Heavy rains caused a mudslide in the eastern Napo province on Friday, during which a rock struck and ruptured a pipeline owned by private company OCP Ecuador.
Neither the government nor OCP Ecuador has quantified the extent of the spill, but the environmental authority has described it as a “major” pollution event.
JW
Article URL : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/ecuador-oil-spill-pollutes-river-protected-amazon-area-ministry