Villagers collect 8000 litres of spilled oil from Sundarban

The Padma Oil Company has bought eight thousand litres of furnace oil from the villagers who collected them from the Shela River and its connecting canals in the Sundarban. The company bought the amount of oil from Friday to Saturday noon at a rate of Tk 30 per litre, said shiping minister while visiting the oil spilled Shela River and its adjacent areas. He also said that the government was considering whether anything could be done for the people whose livelihoods were affected by the oil spill.

Almost all of 3.57 lakh liters of furnace oil carried by oil tanker ‘OT Southern Star 7’ from Padma Oil Company’s Khulna depot to Gopalganj spilled in the river water as it capsized in river Shela River in the Sundarban early November 9. In a meeting attended by different government department top officials at Mongla Port Authority on Thursday, it was decided that the villagers would be involved in cleaning spilled oil from the river water and the oil company would buy the oil from the villagers. Most of the villagers by the side of river Shela are dependent on fishing and fish trading and now the fishermen are unable to catch fish from river as oil slicks are floating on water and the fishes are not available there, locals said.

- See more at: http://newagebd.net/76231/villagers-collect-8000-litres-of-spilled-oil-from-sundarban/#sthash.aLeKT50b.dpuf