Germany to help Lebanon clean up oil spill

Germany said on Friday it would send a disaster team to help clean up the disastrous oil spill along the Lebanese coast, a result of Israel's airstrikes on a power plant south of Beirut last month.

A three-member advance team would arrive in Beirut, capital of Lebanon, this weekend and 30 to 50 German experts would be deployed in Lebanon at the beginning of September, said a spokeswoman for the German Coastal Command for Marine Emergencies.

Oil booms, skimmers, reservoir storage facilities, pumps, high pressure cleaners and other equipment would be airlifted to Lebanon, she added.

After Israel's airstrikes on a power station south of Beirut in mid-July, 15,000 tons of oil spilled into the Mediterranean Sea.

A German news agency quoted the Greenpeace group as saying that about 150 kilometers of the Mediterranean Sea coast had been polluted with oil, from the Lebanese capital all the way northward to Syria.

Norway has already sent several teams to Lebanon to help clean the oil spill.

Source: Xinhua