Chennai oil spill cleaned manually as machines fail at work

 

The Chennai coast was covered with sludge after two ships collided off the Chennai shore spilling massing amount of oil into the sea, five days ago. Currently, 27 to 30 km of the Chennai shore is affected as at least 20 tonnes of oil is floating on the sea water.

 

The flowing water is reaching Marina Beach too. The boulders along the beach of Ennore have made it impossible for the waves to wash off the oil ashore. This has led to thickening of the oil on the shore.

 

Also Read: Oil chokes Chennai's wildlife; where are the Marina protesters?

 

The volunteers along the Marina beach are working hard to manually remove the sludge from the sand. But they have been not given any protective gear. So far hundreds of plastic bags have been filled with the sand with pollutants and are being shifted in loads from the shore.

 

 

The oil spill has greatly affected the tortoises as they are being found dead and washed ashore. This has become the main worry for the environmentalists as the sludge would affect the fish inside the water too.

 

Also Read: Chennai's latest oil spill disaster the result of human error?

 

The oil spill will not allow oxygen supply to help the species living inside the water. The dead fishes also are not having any takers and people are hesitating to buy the fish which are affected by the sludge.

 

What is a manual recovery?

The manual recovery of the oil spill is referred to as a common method used to clean the water of pollutants using rakes and shovels. The materials including sand affected by the oil are collected in buckets or bags and sent to a station, where it can be processed. This method is considered slower when compared to using vacuum trucks or sucking machines. But the manual method generated less waste than the machines.