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Panic grips Balikpapan following oil spill, fire impact

Polluted beach: Oil is seen floating in the Makassar Strait from Kemala Beach in Klandasan, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, on Sunday

N. Adri (The Jakarta Post)
Balikpapan
Mon, April 2, 2018

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Panic grips Balikpapan following oil spill, fire impact

P

span class="inline inline-center">Polluted beach: Oil is seen floating in the Makassar Strait from Kemala Beach in Klandasan, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, on Sunday. (JP/Courtesy of @balikpapanku (Kota Balikpapan (Cyber City))

The pungent smell of fuel is thick in the air around Balikpapan Bay in East Kalimantan following an oil spill in the sea, leading to a fire that claimed two lives on Saturday.

Residents living in North Penajem Paser regency in the southern part of the bay have been suffering from nausea, vomiting and suffocation from the strong smell. “They can’t stand the smell, especially the women and children,” Penajam subdistrict head Lilis said.

Eight neighborhood units in the regency’s subdistrict are located directly adjacent to the bay.

“It smells like diesel fuel, but stronger,” said Ride, the head of Margasari, Baru Tengah subdistrict on Sunday.

Responding to the issue, the regency administration has set up an emergency post in the Penajam speedboat harbor to assist residents by distributing masks, as well as monitoring the latest situation.

The smell has also driven several residents to stop cooking, fearing that the fuel-filled air would burst into flames as they turn on their stoves. With their doors and windows tightly closed, the residents rely on fans in their houses to get rid of the pungent air.

On Sunday, the local disaster mitigation agency distributed as many as 1,200 packages of food to residents affected by the smell.

Officials had also noticed a number of environmental impacts by Sunday morning, the black oil had reached the shore and stuck to the roots and leaves of lines of mangrove trees that serve as tidal protection in the area.

Meanwhile, residents also noticed a kerosene smell from rainwater that fell in Balikpapan on Saturday afternoon, resident Chita Wijaya said.

Balikpapan Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) head Ibnu Sulistio said the agency was still analyzing a sample of the rainwater. Water vapor could have carried away substances produced by the fire, causing the water to smell, he said.

Concerns arose following a fire that broke out at 11 a.m. local time on Saturday near Panama-flagged coal cargo vessel MV Ever Judger 2, which was docked in the bay. Some 20 of the vessel’s crew members were rescued and taken to a nearby hospital.

At least two local fishermen were found dead from the fire while one ship crew member suffered burns in the incident. Authorities are still looking for three missing local fishermen allegedly trapped in the blaze.

State-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina, private oil company Chevron and local authorities managed to extinguish the fire on Saturday and have since been doing their utmost to clean the oil spill and prevent it from spreading. The oil spill covered a 400-meter area of the bay in the early morning on Saturday, but then spread to a radius of over 2 kilometers in the waters around Semayang Port to Margasari.

Pertamina’s regional manager of communications and CSR for the Kalimantan area Yudi Nugraha said in a statement on Sunday the company had checked the sample of the spill and found that it had not come from its refinery unit operations. Pertamina also checked all its pipe installations passing the Balikpapan Bay and did not find any leaks. The spill was not crude oil, but instead fuel used by ships, he said adding that the company urged people not to panic as the authorities were handling the matter.

On Sunday afternoon, the Balikpapan municipal administration, East Kalimantan Police, Semayang Port master and Pertamina Refinary Unit V held a closed-door meeting to discuss the management of the oil spill.

Police are still investigating the cause of the spill and the fire.

Separately, Balikpapan and East Kalimantan environmentalists formed a coalition to report parties allegedly involved in the oil spill. The coalition has urged authorities to work fast to protect the environment, especially as the habitats of marine animals such as dolphins and dugong are located on the north side of the Balikpapan Bay, coordinator Hussein Suwarno said. (kuk)

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