Oil leaves water, lands fish dead onshore, keeps catchers at home

By G Saravanan
Published on Jan 03, 2010:

Chennai: LOCAL fishermen and residents along the East Coast Road near Uthandi heaved a sigh of relief as an oil spill they had noticed in the sea on Friday had washed ashore fully by Saturday afternoon. But the five-km stretch was deserted as boats stranded in pools of oil detained fishermen on the shores.Several dead fish were found along the shores, and a stench emanated from the area.
A senior Coast Guard official said the initial reports obtained from its probe team suggests that the spillage was a result of a discharge from a moving vessel. The maritime force made two aerial surveys of the shoreline and declared the spill wasn't significant enough to pose an ecological disaster.
Local fishermen told Express that the spillage had washed ashore by Saturday afternoon and the seawater was ``clear now''.
The Coast Guard said it also planned to make two more sorties on Sunday."We have observed some oil sheens off the ECR coastline that were moving slowly in a southward direction (towards Puducherry)," another Coast Guard official said.
A team of officials from the Puducherry Port Department visited the Kanathur Reddy Kuppam beach and confirmed the Coast Guard's version that the oil spill could have been caused by a moving ship. Several environmentalists also toured the shoreline to assess the ecological damage.