‘Millions of liters’ of oil spilled in Israel, flooding nature reserve (PHOTOS)

Crude oil streams through the desert in south Israel,
near the village of Beer Ora, north of Eilat
December 4, 2014.(Reuters / Yehuda Ben Itach)

RT | Dec 4, 2014

A pipeline breach near the Israel-Jordan border has flooded a nature reserve in what authorities call one of Israel’s worst environmental disasters, causing large amounts of potentially poisonous gas to be released near Aqaba, raising health concerns.

The Eilat-Ashkelon crude oil pipeline near the Evrona reserve in the south of Israel accidentally ruptured Wednesday night spewing a river of oil across the desert. Israeli environment officials predict that the clean-up effort could take years.

“The full scope of the incident is still not clear to us, but it is certainly a matter of millions of liters of crude oil, which is dangerous both to animals and to the nature reserve itself," Environment Ministry representative Guy Samet was quoted as saying in Globes, as Israeli financial news daily.

Samet has said that an estimated 4.3 mile-oil stream is flowing through the reserve, which is home to a large gazelle population and the world’s northernmost doum palms, a rare type of branching palm tree.

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