Volunteers continue to cleanup one of Lerma beaches in Mexico after environmental authorities stated that oil is washing ashore in an alleged leak involving energy giant Pemex.
Deputy Public Prosecutor for Environmental Crimes of Campeche Alejandro Brown Gantus said that the oil will have a serious environmental impact.
There were more than 100 square kilometers of hydrocarbons in the sea and this was dispersed with the sea currents along all the beaches in the Gulf, he added.
Residents and environmentalists have tried in recent days to clean a beach in the town of Lerma, where patches of black were visible in the sea. Satellite images showed that the spill began on July 4, three days before the blast, and had spread over some 400 square kilometers.
On July 18, environmental groups reported an alleged oil spill in an area of the Gulf of Mexico where an explosion earlier in the month killed two workers at a gas production platform of Pemex.
Pemex, which has suffered a string of accidents in recent years, acknowledged that it had detected a leak in the Gulf of Mexico on July 3 and was repaired on July 22.
But it insisted that there was no spill related to the explosion and suggested that pollution in the sea was the result of "natural hydrocarbon emissions."
Source: Qatar News Agency