United States: military families victims of oil pollution in Pearl Harbor

A view of the base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

AFP / Archives

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1 min

Hundreds of military families are deprived of safe drinking water due to oil pollution.

The alert was issued after large numbers of people living at Pearl Harbor Base complained of a suspicious smell in the water and symptoms.

Pearl Harbor is one of the most important US military bases.

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With our correspondent in New York,

For the representative of Hawaii in Congress, it is " 

 ."

According to Kayali'i Kahele, at least 100,000 people, soldiers and their families living in Pearl Harbor, no longer have access to safe drinking water.

It all started on November 20 when families reported unusual odors in the water.

Some residents, including children, complained of headaches, stomach aches and nausea.

It took several days and the multiplication of reports for the navy and the army to agree to carry out tests.

Result: the water contains traces of petroleum.

Military officials therefore cut off the power supply in order to purge and purify the contaminated water.

Distributions of water bottles have been set up.

For the moment, the authorities are not certain of the origin of this pollution, but suspect a fuel leak which would have contaminated an underground well.

The soldiers assure that everything will be back to normal in ten days.

But some groups fear other underground wells have been affected.

In particular, traces of hydrocarbons have been detected in the well which supplies 20% of Honolulu's drinking water.

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