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After ravaging the Bahamas archipelago, Hurricane Dorian also appears to have caused a major environmental disaster on the island of Grand Bahama, where oil is now pouring into the water table.
From our special correspondent to the Bahamas , Domitille Piron
A spill in a ravaged pine forest. A few kilometers from the village of High Rock where live or rather still live 17 inhabitants, 6 lids of huge oil tanks have flown by the force of the wind. The oil spill is massive and seems to have reached the ocean, the company Equinor cripples, but aerial images prove the opposite.
The ground slides and the vegetation is black for several kilometers around. Joseph Darville, president of Waterkeepers in the Bahamas, came to see the damage: " It's not just what you see there, we have our water table only 1 meter from the surface so any hydrocarbon pollution will affect our water drinking. And we are just starting to get running water in Grand Bahama again, but we are warned not to drink it or wash with it, just flush it . "
The heavy rains expected in the coming days raise fears of an overflow of open tanks. The Norwegian company Equinor, which manages the storage and had evacuated its staff before the hurricane, promised to clean up the damage but admitted to face a " complex and difficult " situation.