There's been an unusual development in recent days in one of Southeast Asia's most populous cities. An oil spill has surprised authorities, worried conservationists, and kept residents and tourists off the beaches over a holiday weekend.
Singapore is a relatively unusual location for a big oil spill.
Every day, about a thousand ships pass through the Strait of Singapore — which connects the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Normally, the maritime traffic runs smoothly.
But on Friday, a Dutch-registered dredger boat that is used to scrape and suck up sediment from waterways suddenly lost power just south of Singapore — along with the ability to steer.
The boat started to drift and then slammed into a stationary Singaporean oil tanker, rupturing one of its tanks and sending about 400 tons of low-sulfur fuel oil into the ocean.
Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said the spill was contained, but ocean currents carried the treated oil to nearby shorelines. The incident caused several beaches of luxury resorts on Sentosa Island to close.
The government said that over the weekend, it deployed close to a mile of containment booms to capture the oil.
On Monday, authorities sent out seven oil skimmers to remove sludge from the water.
The government also said it said it will be installing another mile of booms over the next few days to protect more of the shoreline.
