Heavy fuel bunker oil leaking from a mysterious 48-year-old capsized barge off the coast of Tobago has spread hundreds of kilometres west to reach the east coast of the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire, while authorities in Aruba, another Dutch island, are on alert for the slick washing up on their shoreline too.
Officials on Bonaire said yesterday evening the oil posed a “serious threat to both humans and nature”.
Oil was also detected in Grenada’s territorial waters last week.
A preliminary investigation has found that the capsized barge had departed from Panama and was being tugged to nearby Guyana when it began to sink off Tobago’s coast. TankerTrackers.com has satellite images showing the nearly 50-year-old barge was carrying some 35,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil on its final journey.
Authorities are still seeking more details, including the location of the tugboat and its owner.
On the morning of February 7, local authorities detected an oil slick spewing from a capsized vessel off the west coast of Tobago. The slick quickly hit the southwest shoreline of the Caribbean island with a national emergency declared and thousands of volunteers helping in the subsequent clean-up.
