Egyptian officials have admitted in the last 24 hours that there has been an oil leak from one of several oil rigs found in the Red Sea.
The leak is thought to come from an offshore oil platform in Jebel al-Zayt north of Hurghada and has polluted about 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline including tourist beach resorts. Government spokesman Magdy Rady said the amount of oil leaked was "limited," but he did not say how much. He admitted that the spill was detected last week and has now been largely contained.
However, environmentalists claim that the leak has restarted and say that the government is trying to cover up the extent of the damage due to fears of an impact to tourist visitors to Hurghada - one of Egypt’s top tourist destinations.
Ahmed el-Droubi, a biologist with the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association is quoted: "Just today I received news that the oil had started leaking again this afternoon after it had stopped Thursday."
Founded by divers in 1992, HEPCA has been sounding the alarm about the spill, which it says has damaged environmentally sensitive areas.
"The northern islands protected area is very heavily impacted," said el-Droubi. "This area is very important because it is the last pristine spot, there is a lot of sea life there that will be harmed ... there are dead birds and dead sea turtles scattered across the island covered in oil."
Mahmoud Ismail, the head of the environmental crisis department, disagrees and said the impact on most of the beaches has been minimal and the clean up would be done in a few days, though he admitted: "The hardest work will be cleaning up the coral and Tawila Island, the beaches will be cleaned up in a few days," he said, adding that he had few complaints from local hotels.
Hurghada was once regarded as one of the world’s finest diving sites with over 1000 invertebrate species, 200 coral species and 1200 species of fish being found in the Red Sea. A huge influx and tourist however has meant that a lot of the reef has deteriorated. This spill and the way in which it is treated could potentially have a huge impact on the fish and coral from that area.