The governor of an eastern Thai province announced a state of emergency on Saturday after an oil slick washed up on a sand beach, closing restaurants and stores in a setback for the pandemic-hit tourism economy.
An undersea pipe used to load tankers at an offshore mooring station which is controlled by the Star Petroleum Refining Co. is thought to have leaked 20-50 tonnes of oil on Tuesday night in the Gulf of Thailand.
The leak was stopped within hours, according to the firm, but efforts to avoid an oil slick from reaching the Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province southeast of Bangkok failed, and some oil began leaking onto the sand there on Saturday morning.
A large portion of the slick is still at sea, and there are fears that it will hit Koh Samet, a prominent tourist island that, like the rest of the country, is just beginning to recover from the coronavirus pandemic slump.
Chemicals have been dropped from aircraft to scatter the oil, and floating booms have been deployed to trap it so that it can be skimmed from the surface and removed.
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