“It has emerged that an oil spill that occurred last week in Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, is the bay’s second-biggest environmental disaster.
The oil leaked from a ruptured underwater refinery pipeline last Friday and strong winds made the situation worse, spreading the slick beyond the port area towards the beaches of Niteroi, which lies on the other side of the bay from Rio. At the time the damage was considered to be minor, but today the environmental sub-secretary said the spill was the second biggest ever in the region.
Peixoto de Castro, owners of the Manginhos refinery, from which the ruptured pipeline runs, initially claimed a spill of 2
