Coastal pollution fears after Nigeria oil spill

Those living along Nigeria’s coastline said on Monday that officials are not doing enough to clean up last month’s deep sea oil spill.

Thirteen coastal villages are thought to have been affected by the incident at Shell’s Bonga oil field on December 20th.

Environmental groups said local beaches have been coated with black sludge and drinking water has been polluted.

Shell shut down its oil platform following the spill.

The company denied that any of the oil has washed up on the coast.

An investigation is underway into how around 40,000 barrels of oil spilled while being loaded onto a tanker. Shell has admitted workers only discovered the leak after seeing a sheen of crude in the water.

A waiting tanker takes about 25 hours to be filled, which means the leak could have spewed for hours before being noticed.

Shell’s pipelines in the area have spilled several times, which the company usually blames on sabotage attacks and rampant oil theft.

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