Tasman Spirit oil spill on the Karachi coast last year caused colossal damages to environment, marine life and the human beings with contaminating approximately 2062sq.km marine area as well as affecting 300,000 people, the largest number in any oil spill in the history.
Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) study revealed alarming facts like damages to seabed sediments in 270sq.km area caused by petroleum hydrocarbons and 2,000sq.km area impacted by oil and suggested reimbursement of costs incurred in responding to spill as well as compensation of financial losses and costs of the Natural Resource Damage.
"This onshore area is heavily populated, leading to estimates that perhaps 300,000 people were exposed directly to toxic petroleum vaporise during the immediate aftermath of the spill," the report said.
"This represents the largest exposure of humans to toxic hydrocarbon vaporise in any oil spill in the history. As a result, many health effects were documented (see socio-economic section below)," it added.
This study that also comprises the initial studies carried out by different departments, was carried out by Pak-EPA in assistance with Steiner, an expert who conducted study of Alaska Oil Spill, as well as in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and was presented to Environment Minister Major Tahir Iqbal (Retd) here on Tuesday.