Oil Spill Spreads From Tobago To Bonaire

Oil leaking from a capsized barge off the coast of Tobago has spread hundreds of miles to reach the Caribbean island of Bonaire.

Officials on Bonaire, which is located 50 miles north of the Venezuelan coast, said the oil posed a "serious threat to both humans and nature" while, the island is the latest to have been contaminated with oil from the barge which ran aground earlier this month, and it is still unclear who owns the barge and what may have caused it to sink.

The authorities on Bonaire, which is a special municipality of the Netherlands, said the island's east coast, including Sorobon, Lac and Lagun, had been polluted, and also warned that the island's mangrove, fish and coral ecosystems were at risk.

The oil leak was first spotted by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard on 7 February, while, they traced it to a barge which had become lodged on a reef about 150m off Tobago's southern coast, and there was no crew on board the barge and the Coast Guard said it had not received any distress signals.

Trinidad and Tobago authorities said, the barge had originated in Panama and had been towed by a tugboat.