The Chevron offshore oil rig which started burning weeks ago is still on fire. The situation has led to a lot of fish in the aquatic region dying and floating to the surface.

The disaster is also taking its toll on the people in the region, who rely on the water for survival, with clinics swarmed by patients manifesting different reactions as a result of the contamination.

“The community here has no other source of water apart from the river water, which on its own isn’t even safe enough to drink, but the pollution has made the water even worse,” Dr. Oladipo Folorunso, a doctor in one of the affected towns, Ikebiri, said.

According to him, the illnesses can be  attributed to the burning rig, because rising temperatures in water can cause bacteria to thrive.

An independent environmental watch group, SkyTruth, said a satellite image showed that the fire at a point was at least 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 730 degrees Celsius), hot enough to soften steel.

It will be recalled that the fire began on January 16 from a shallow-water gas well for Chevron’s Nigerian subsidiary near its North Apoi oil platform.

The Oil multinational, Chevron, has not given an estimate on how long the fire will burn. “We cannot predict how long the process will take, but what we can tell you is we will do so as quickly as possible while continuing to maintain safe operations,” Chevron said recently.

Last week, the company said that it was moving food and supplies to the communities in the area.

However in another affected community, Koluama 1, the traditional ruler said Chevron and the federal government were not doing enough to address the problem.

“We need the federal government to come in. These relief materials are provided by Chevron because the state government prevailed on Chevron to provide them, but the people are suffering,”  Jeremiah Leghemo said.

(By Tony Tamuno, Daily Times, 07/02/2012)