December 19, 2008	Friday	Zilhaj 20, 1429

KARACHI, Dec 18: Residents of Sector 48-B, Korangi, have demanded that the local government ensure the immediate removal of the earth and sand soaked with crude oil, which gushed from a damaged pipeline for hours and flooded the area on Wednesday.

Residents of the area told Dawn on Thursday that the oil gushing from the ruptured pipeline at a point on the ‘Graveyard road’ had affected their homes, schools, shops, water reservoirs and streets and there was a likelihood that, if due measures were not taken in time, a concentration of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere would be difficult to remove.

Crude oil in the open not only irritates people but the concentration of hydrocarbons from the oil in the air also leads to serious hazards to human health through breathing.

During the day, the town administration’s sanitary staff and labourers were seen collecting the sand spread in the streets, open space of houses and rooms, to where the oil had found its way on Wednesday night, to contain the spread of the oil.

They were dumping the oil-soaked sand into nearby open spaces, but were quiet on what should be done to the sand and the land that had absorbed the oil.

A former director of the provincial environment watchdog and private consultant on conservation, Shahid Lutfi, said the sand needed to be shifted from the area to a landfill site for a scientific treatment and disposal, while the behavior of the land affected by the oil should also be monitored and remedial measures taken to save human, wild and plant lives in the oil-bathed area.

He said that since the weather was not hot these days the rate of evaporation of the hydrocarbons and other carcinogenic substances in the atmosphere was slow and air was bearable to the residents of the area and their visitors. However, oil was seeping deeper into the soil, which could prove hazardous in the future.

According to a local government source, about 200 families in UC-4 of Korangi town were affected by the “oil rain” that continued for three and a half hours.

A group of men were seen loading cans and buckets filled with the crude oil onto donkey carts and driving them away.

Though some portion of oil that had flowed into a nearby sewer was drawn out by daily wage earners, there are chances that the remaining oil would find its way into the sea. Again a problem for the marine ecosystem, commented a senior citizen in the area.

Discussing the contamination of birds and mammals due to the oil spill, an expert said that since crude oil was very toxic, domestic birds might also be exposed to the oil for long period and mammals which licked it could fall terribly sick.

A resident who got sprayed with the oil last night said it became unbearable for the residents to stay and breathe in their small congested homes and that was why a number of affected families had to shift to some open places. Since the weather was favourable and oil smelled less pungent, almost all families, which had made a voluntary evacuation earlier, had returned to their homes before noon.

A few boys and girls, unaware of their continued exposure to the oil and a dull environment with a relatively deteriorated air quality, were seen washing their doors and windows, cleaning the corridors and galleries and plants in the afternoon.

When asked if the population had been told about the do’s and don’ts in the wake of the oil spill, a couple of young men in the street said that nobody was there to educate the affected families, mostly uneducated and belonging to the working class.

A group of staff of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency, present near the place where the pipeline had been damaged, said they had been assessing the ambient air quality and that the quality had improved since what was tested on Wednesday night.