The leak unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the seawater. Photo / Twitter
The leak unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the seawater. Photo / Twitter
Climate activist Greta Thunberg has hit out at world leaders over a gas leak at an underwater pipeline at the Gulf of Mexico.
The leak unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the seawater. Images of the raging inferno were widely shared on social media.
Meanwhile the people in power call themselves "climate leaders" as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants - granting new oil licenses exploring future oil drilling sites. This is the world they are leaving for us. https://t.co/4hQ8nm11Fd
Thunberg reposted a videoclip of the massive fireball on her Twitter account.
"Meanwhile the people in power call themselves 'climate leaders' as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants - granting new oil licences exploring future oil drilling sites," Thunberg wrote. "This is the world they are leaving for us."
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and other climate protesters gather for a protest in front of the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm on June 18. Photo / AP
On Saturday Mexico's state-owned oil company said an undersea gas pipeline ruptured near a drilling platform in the Gulf.
Greenpeace Mexico said the accident appeared to have been caused by the failure of an underwater valve and that it illustrates the dangers of Mexico's policy of promoting fossil fuels.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has bet heavily on drilling more wells and buying or building oil refineries. He touts oil as "the best business in the world".
Greenpeace wrote in a statement that the fire, which took five hours to extinguish, "demonstrates the serious risks that Mexico's fossil fuel model poses for the environment and people's safety."
A gas leak unleashed a fireball that appeared to boil the seawater. Photo / via Twitter
Petroleos Mexicanos dispatched fire control boats to pump more water over the flames. Pemex, as the company is known, said nobody was injured in the incident in the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap field.
The leak near dawn on Friday occurred about 150m from a drilling platform. The company said it had brought the gas leak under control about five hours later.
It was unclear how much environmental damage the gas leak and oceanic fireball had caused.
Hey maybe when the Gulf of Mexico is ablaze in a fiery hellscape, it might be time to drop fossil fuels and take climate change seriously.pic.twitter.com/rJyx7H8Tht
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) July 2, 2021
