Singapore’s most popular stretch of beaches remained shut on the first day of the city state’s summer school holidays yesterday as emergency crews continued their cleanup of an oil slick.
Despite the mess and the closure, residents flocked to the seaside East Coast Park for picnics, jogging and cycling, even though they could not swim or frolic on the sand.
Signs on the tree-lined park advised the public to stay away from the affected beaches, warning them that the water was “contaminated” by the slick, from an oil tanker damaged in a collision off Singapore on Tuesday.
PHOTO: AFP
But the chocolate-colored sludge that tainted the seawater and sand in parts of the park had begun to thin, witnesses said, and the strong, kerosene-like smell in the area over the past two days had dissipated.
Emergency crews continued cleaning up the beaches yesterday, shoveling oil-slickened sand into black plastic bags.
Officials estimate that about 7.2km of beach and embankments, along the east coast were affected after winds and tides made containing the slick at sea difficult.
The slick came from the Malaysian-registered tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3, which was carrying nearly 62,000 tonnes of crude when it collided with the MV Waily, a bulk carrier registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
About 2,500 tonnes of crude leaked from a gash on the double-hulled tanker’s port side, officials said. Such tankers are designed to limit spillage in case of a rupture.
Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said most of the leaked crude had been contained at sea.
Chona Garciano, a Singaporean of Filipino descent visiting East Coast Park, said her daughter was disappointed that she could not swim.
“Since we are already here, we will just have a picnic. My daughter is quite disappointed at not being able to swim,” said Garciano, a 49-year-old engineer.
Hannah Mei, 13, a secondary school student, said she and her three friends decided to come to the park on the first day of their school holidays.
“The smell is pretty bad but not as strong when we smelled it in our school a few days ago,” Mei said.
While they will not be able to enjoy the beach, “we’ll still continue to cycle and play games and stay here until the evening,” she said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not