SCARBOROUGH, Tobago – More than a week after the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard was notified of an overturned vessel and oil slick, new satellite imagery has revealed the expansion of pollutants in the southeast Caribbean Sea.
Maxar Technologies Inc., a space technology company based in Colorado, recently released images that showed the partially submerged vessel and the oil slick, which now extend many miles in the Caribbean Sea to the west of the island.
Crews have installed booms around the capsized vessel but have not been able to plug the leak.
Prime Minister Keith Rowley toured Tobago on Sunday and called the incident a national emergency. Rowley said the situation was far from being under control despite more than 1,000 people working on clean-up efforts during the busy Carnival season.
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Nearby countries such as Venezuela and Grenada are on alert for the first signs of pollutants washing ashore local beaches, as satellite images show the oil continuing to float past Tobago and deeper into the Caribbean.
Trinidad’s Coast Guard said it has information that a tugboat and barge bound for Guyana were involved in the incident but so far have not found the associated crew.
“We have been working very closely with the Guyana Coast Guard on this critical matter, and we appreciate their full-scale support,” Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds said in a statement.
Searches by the coast guard have not spotted signs of human life at the crash site, meaning any crew that survived likely fled the scene.
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Despite the spill, most Carnival activities went uninterrupted, and the heavily touristed Scarborough port remains operational.
The Tobago Emergency Management Agency said several urgent public safety advisories have been issued for 9 miles of coastline impacted by the spill.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago has not released updated estimates of the cost of the environmental disaster, which are expected to be significant.
Local politicians have stated that they expect the owner of the vessels to reimburse the islands for clean-up and recovery.