Last Saturday, April 13, a train transporting oil to the Cabaiguán Refinery suffered an accident.
As if made it known, the last two tank cars and the caboose derailed. Although the accident did not cause any damage to people, it did affect the railway track and fuel tanks.
On Monday night, one of the overturned tanks, which still contained fuel following the extraction carried out by a specialized brigade from Cupet, suffered a crude oil spill. However, authorities assure that the spill is under control.
Leonel Díaz Camero, delegate of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (Citma) in Sancti Spíritus, declared to Escambray that the fuel spill has been contained both in the watercourse, a tributary of the Zaza River, and in the land part.
Several measures have been adopted to control the situation, with the help of various organizations, including the Youth Labor Army, the Hydraulic Use Company, the Sergio Soto Refinery, the Fire Department and the Civil Defense.
Oil spill controlled following train accident in Cuba
Likewise, Díaz Camero explained that several solutions are being evaluated to clean the surface water course, since the area is very irregular and there is no access, which makes the use of mechanized technology difficult.
Among the alternatives, the construction of a road access to the stream to be able to collect the crude oil from the surface or the burning of the crude oil are considered.
The Citma delegate assured that the spill is completely under control. “It was not significant, neither in terms of quantity, nor in terms of impact, and biodiversity has not been affected,” he said.
For his part, Mijail Bonachea Crespo, director of the Sergio Soto refinery, announced that all the soil affected by the spill will be collected and taken to an industry bioremediation area. There, a bacteria will convert the hydrocarbons over a period of three months, which will allow the affected soil to recover.
The Provincial Director in the Provincial Transportation Directorate of Sancti Spíritus acknowledged that “at the time of the accident there was no product spill,” in response to complaints from several users on social networks.
“The slight spill occurred in the early hours of Monday and Tuesday morning, following work was done there to transfer it to a tanker in better conditions than the one that was damaged,” he added.
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