Sharjah24 – AFP: An oil spill in eastern Ecuador has reached a nature reserve and polluted a river that supplies water to indigenous communities, the country's environmental ministry said Monday.
Nearly two hectares (five acres) of a protected area of the Cayambe-Coca national park have been contaminated, as well as the Coca river -- one of the biggest in the Ecuadoran Amazon, the ministry said in a statement.
The park of some 400,000 hectares is home to a wide variety of protected animals and holds important water reserves.
Heavy rains caused a mudslide in the eastern Napo province on Friday, during which a rock struck and ruptured a pipeline owned by private company OCP Ecuador.
Neither the government nor OCP Ecuador have quantified the extent of the spill, but the environmental authority has described it as a "major" pollution event.
"Our staff are monitoring 210 kilometers (130 miles) of the Coca River and its tributaries and coordinating containment and remediation where traces of hydrocarbon are identified," the ministry said.
Emergency committees, it added, were deployed to Napo province and neighboring Orellana to "guarantee safe water for consumption of the population".
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