OVER FORTY YEARS of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon have created what may well be the worst oil-related disaster on the planet. The incidence of cancer and other illnesses is among the highest in the world. It has been likened to an ‘Environmental Chernobyl’ – and is all the more disastrous for being so under-reported and little known in the wider world.
The highly toxic river water contains a mixture of petroleum, heavy metals and radioactive substances, all created by oil firms over decades of destructive extraction. At present, Texaco is being sued by 30,000 local people over the toxic ...
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