The equivalent of 6,000 barrels was scattered in a coastal area north of Lima due to an accident.
This Monday, a mission of experts in environmental disasters from the United Nations arrived in Peru to provide technical assistance to the Government regarding the spill of 6,000 barrels of oil that occurred last week at a refinery operated by Repsol in the north of Lima.
“The team of United Nations specialists is already in Lima to evaluate and propose immediate actions to mitigate the environmental impact caused by the oil spill in Ventanilla,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Twitter.
Initially, the group of United Nations professionals will carry out a rapid assessment of the socio-environmental impact of the oil spill, which to date has already affected more than 1.8 square kilometers of coastline and 7.1 square kilometers of sea.
Likewise, the experts will advise the authorities on the management and coordination of the response to this ecological disaster, in addition to proposing effective actions to reduce the risk of future similar incidents.
This assistance comes shortly after the Peruvian government requested technical support from the United Nations and advice on establishing the amount of compensation that will be required from those responsible for the tragic spill, according to the Prime Minister, Mirtha Vásquez, last week.
The mission will be directed by the UN Peru Resident Coordination Office and led by the Joint Environment Unit (JEU), made up of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Program United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
To date, the Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA), attached to the Ministry of the Environment, continues to carry out environmental supervision and evaluation tasks in the areas affected by the spill, while monitoring compliance with the administrative measures issued to the La Pampilla Refinery, which Repsol operates in Ventanilla, municipality of Callao, the port region near Lima.
Initially, Repsol downplayed the impacts of the crude oil spill that occurred when a ship unloaded oil at the refinery, estimating that it was about seven gallons, and has attributed it to abnormal waves caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga, which occurred last 15 from January.
On Sunday, the president of Repsol in Peru, Jaime Fernández-Cuesta, declared in a news program on the national network Latina that the company had a “perception error” about the magnitude of the spill and that it only learned the real impact the day after the event.
Subsequent investigations by various official entities, including the OEFA, confirmed that the spill was much larger and demanded that the company carry out an urgent cleanup plan to reverse the environmental contamination.
In parallel, the Peruvian government declared last Saturday an environmental emergency for 90 days in the affected coastal area, for which it has been described as “the worst ecological disaster in the recent history of Peru.” (I)
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