Fujairah’s shores were again hit by oil pollution believed to have been caused by sludge dumped by crude tankers plying the Gulf water off the emirate, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The smelly black oil tar dotting the sandy beaches off Dibba crippled fishing in that area, damaged at least 30 boats and killed a large number of fish before municipal teams launched a clean-up drive, Alkhaleej said.
The tar pollution on the beach came after small oil slicks were seen in the water off Sharm and Aqqa areas, the paper said.
“We have succeeded in dealing with the pollution and the area is now clean,” the paper quoted Hussein Al Yamahi, head of Dibba municipality, as saying.
Fujearah’s coastline has been hit by oil pollution many times over the past years and officials have blamed oil tankers and other vessels shuttling the Gulf water.
The UAE has enacted laws to penalise vessels dumping waste in its territorial waters but some of them are still violating these laws and throw sludge and other waste after washing their oil tankers.
Fujairah, the only UAE emirate located outside the Gulf, is the main regional fuel depot for the more than 100 tankers passing daily through the strategic Hormuz Strait, the Gulf’s only water way through which at least a fifth of the world’s crude oil exports pass.
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