Four thousand cubic meters (140,000 cu ft) of crude oil has spewed into a nature reserve on the edge of France's Camargue national park after an underground pipe burst, officials said on Friday. "This is a real ecological disaster," junior environmental minister Chantal Jouanno told reporters after visiting the area in the far south of France.
Four thousand cubic meters (140,000 cu ft) of crude oil has spewed into a nature reserve on the edge of France's Camargue national park after an underground pipe burst, officials said on Friday.
"This is a real ecological disaster," junior environmental minister Chantal Jouanno told reporters after visiting the area in the far south of France.
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The spill spread over 2 hectares (5 acres) of the Coussouls de Crau reserve near the town of Saint-Martin-de-Crau, which was created in 2001 and is home to thousands of birds.
The site lies at the entrance to the Camargue park, a vast expanse of plains and marshland, famous for its wild horses and bulls, that boards the Mediterranean Sea.
The fractured pipeline was operated by the Societe du Pipeline Sud-Europeen (SPSE), which supplies refineries and a petrochemical plant in France, Switzerland and Germany.
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