Palm oil spills threaten Narathat beach in South

The leaking of palm oil from a sunken Indonesian cargo vessel is threatening the beautiful beaches of Narathiwat province as now one white sand beach, Narathat, has turned waxy yellow with palm oil spills washing and stretching more than three kilometers on shore.

The palm oil spills prompted local people and authorities to hastily find out effective measures to clean them.

Now they are using paper tissue to soak the edible oil from the sand while the Navy and marine police also send frogmen to mend the leakages to stop the oil flow.

But the operation went slow due to rains and strong waves.

One local people called on authorities to bring in more efficient equipment to rid the oil before it stretches further as it will not only hurt tourism, but also marine life would be threatened.

The cargo ship was hijacked from Indonesian waters with millions liters of palm oil as its cargo.

The hijackers sailed the ship into Thai waters and anchored off the coast of Narathiwat province, selling palm oil to passing boats at low price.

Thai authorities were alerted of the hijack and then managed to arrest all the hijackers on board.

But due to torrential storm and high waves in the sea, the ship was thrown by strong waves and hit coral reef. Its hull was wrecked and the oil was then leaked into the sea.

Thai PBS

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