KARACHI, May 19: The Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Karachi has initiated a deep surface study to assess the impact of the pollution on land caused by the Tasman Spirit oil spill off the Clifton beach.

The Director of the Institute, Prof Dr Nayyar Alam Zaigham told APP on Wednesday. He pointed out that five sites had been selected for carrying out drilling in order to collect samples to conduct analysis for measuring the impact of pollution on the land.

The drilling work began on Wednesday near the premises of the National Institute of Oceanography, Clifton. A grant for the purpose had been extended by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

Prof Zaigham informed that the drilling work at the first site would take 15 to 20 days' time. He was of the view that the buried oil-mix was expected to leak into the fresh groundwater aquifers/reservoirs and could possibly contaminate local domestic wells in the coastal area.

It was pointed out that the objective of drilling was to collect soil, rock and water samples from the selected sites at five feet interval to 100-ft depth along the Clifton beach area to study the spilled-oil infiltration down into the sediments, vertical and lateral pattern of spilled-oil concentration, and the rate of propagation of pollution plume created due to the oil spill towards the land. -APP