A three-kilometre long oil slick has been seen in the bay off Sitakunda in the district.
Pilots and passengers flying in and out of Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport
The reddish-black layer -- first reported on Monday -- was spreading towards Sitakunda.
Both the reason and the severity of the slick so far remained unconfirmed.
Zafar Alam, director of Department of Environment (DoE) in Chittagong
“They travelled across the area on a speed boat and found an oil spill from an Indian flag carrier called Ocean Pearl,” Zafar said.
However, the spill from the fertiliser carrying ship was not that big, he said. No contact with the vessel has been made yet.
A DoE official seeking anonymity said ship-breaking yards, a few kilometres away, are also “strongly suspected” to be the source of the slick.
Sitakunda homes the country's lone ship breaking industry.
“Ship breaking is a highly polluting industry and it is already wreaking havoc on the ecology of the area,” he said.
The official added the area is heavily fished and out of the navigational route. The matter would have remained unnoticed if the passengers and the pilots had kept mum.
Munir Chowdhury, director (enforcement) of DoE in Chittagong , saw the strip on Monday morning while on a Regent Airways flight to Dhaka .
“I was shocked to see the spillage over an area of more than three kilometres. The spill was in the direction of Sitakunda,” Munir told The Daily Star yesterday.
Three pilots of Bangladesh Biman flights to Chittagong
It is a huge spill, said the pilots requesting anonymity, and could be disastrous to the already polluted ecology of the area.
Lt Commander Mostafizur Rahman of Bangladesh Coast Guard told this correspondent he had tried to reach the spot on Monday but failed due to navigational hazard.
“Today [yesterday] I dispatched a smaller boat to the area but my men reported that they could not trace the spillage. It must have been drifted away by strong current.”
Source: The Daily Star, Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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