Kuwait desert oil spill sparks ‘state of emergency’: Company

Kuwait City: The Kuwait Oil Company declared a “state of emergency” Monday over an oil spill on land.

The emergency was sparked by an “oil leak in the west of the country”, the state-owned company said in a statement, as video posted by Kuwaiti media showed a gushing pipe surrounded by a large slick of oil.

“No injuries have occurred as a result of the leak and production has not been affected,” company spokesman Qusai Al Amer was quoted as saying, adding that no toxic fumes had been reported.

The leak “occurred on land but not in a residential area”, he later told AFP.

Teams have been dispatched to determine the source of the leak and contain the incident, Al Amer said.

Kuwait’s Al Rai newspaper released a video on Twitter showing a pipe spewing large amounts of oil onto barren land.