Members of the media went to document reports that a serious oils spill had washed up on Jomtien Beach opposite Jomtien Soi 15. The oil was not massive but appeared in small blobs and long strands and stretched about one Km along the beach.
Local residents whose children and grand children regularly used this stretch of the beach said that oil was not uncommon and was usually the result of fishing vessels illegally cleaning out their tanks and dumping oil out in the bay. These deposits however were more significant.
Tourists were not happy as they were in fear for their health and showed the reporters oil stains on their swim wear and bodies that they had picked up before they were made aware of the oil slick.
Officials from The Pattaya Environment Agency were already on scene assessing the extent of the pollution and a team of a dozen or so council workers were hard at work scraping up the oil deposits and putting them in bins for disposal.
One of the officials said that the oil may have drifted down the Gulf of Thailand from an oil tanker that had capsized at Mahachai Port in Samut Sakhorn Province near Bangkok on the 7th of April.
