Huge oil stain on Amur being removed

Rescue workers are carrying out an operation on the Amur (a large Far-Eastern river) to remove a huge oil stain of unknown origin. Taking part in it are two special rescue motorships and several motorboats of rescuers.

A spokesman for the Far-Eastern Emergencies Ministry centre, Alexander Kulinich, said that the boiler oil spill had been discovered on the week-end near the Korsakovskaya isolated field. The spill is up to 6 kilometres long and 350-600 metres wide.

Specialists who arrived at the scene blocked the river bed with special nets and have already gathered more than 700 kilogrammes of oil mass from the water surface.

Two small stains are now remaining on the water near Bibikov shoal and the Korsakovskaya isolated field. The work to remove them is going on.

It is not known whence such a great amount of oil products, presumably about 4 tons, got into the Amur.