environmental officials are saying that
this is the
worst environmental disaster to hit this
coastline
in recent years now over the weekend
thousands of volunteers now joined by
soldiers have been trying to clear as
much of the beach as they can
you can see the kind of painstaking work
this is a lot of the tar is embedded
below the sad this is incredibly sticky
stuff
so you can see the real problem with
that they've had to ask people now to
register before they just show up at the
beach because of the potential
toxic nature how did it all happen well
that remains something of a mystery
the israeli government is using marine
tracking data
also satellite information from a
european agency
they think the most likely scenario is a
ship
out at sea around 30 miles out at sea
probably around a week ago
or a bit more and that there was an
undeclared oil spill
and they're using all that information
to try and close in
at the moment on around nine different
vessels that they think could be the
culprits
uh but so far no definitive answer on
that
they think the slick itself is under
control they've been using
planes to try and monitor it and that
has largely dissipated so now it is just
this
clear-up work one local environmental
official here
described it as a catastrophe and said
it could take many months
or even years to fully clear it up
you