The journey ban will final for 18 months, based on Judge Romualdo Aguedo. It applies to 4 workers of the Spanish vitality and oil firm Repsol: the overall supervisor of La Pampilla refinery, Jaime Fernández-Cuesta, and three firm administrators — Renzo Tejada, Gisela Posadas and José Rey.
The 4 is not going to enchantment the choice, based on their legal professionals, who mentioned that the Repsol executives deliberate to cooperate with authorities as they examine the catastrophe.
Last week, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo declared a state of environmental emergency for coastal areas affected by the spill, calling it an “ecological catastrophe.” The measure is to final 90 enterprise days, Castillo mentioned.
The January 15 spill occurred as crude oil was being unloaded from a ship to the La Pampilla Refinery, which is managed by Repsol, after a strong volcano erupted hundreds of miles away in Tonga.
The ship was struck by waves attributable to the underwater eruption, dumping greater than 6,000 barrels of crude oil into the waters close to Ventanilla district in Callao, Peru’s chief seaport.
Oil has since been discovered within the ocean and seaside sands alongside Peru’s coast, together with the islands of Pescadores and Puntas Guaneras.
“The crude oil spill constitutes a sudden and of serious influence occasion towards the coastal marine ecosystem of a excessive organic variety, and a high-risk for public well being,” the Peruvian authorities mentioned in a press release final Sunday.
Peru’s overseas minister, Oscar Maurtua, requested Repsol final week to compensate fishermen whose livelihoods had been all however eradicated within the wake of the accident.
“The Repsol oil spill in Ventanilla is the worst ecological catastrophe that has occurred in Lima in latest instances and has triggered critical harm to tons of of fishermen’s households. Repsol should compensate for this harm instantly,” Maurtua mentioned in a tweet.
A Repsol spokesperson denied that the corporate ought to settle for duty for the incident. Last week, Tine Van Den Wall Bake informed native radio station RPP that “we didn’t trigger this ecological catastrophe and we can not say who’s accountable.”
The spokesperson added that that they had requested the Peruvian Navy if there was a tsunami threat on the time and if the unloading ought to go forward. The navy gave Repsol the inexperienced gentle to function as regular, Bake mentioned.
She added that the corporate was dedicated to restoring the complete shoreline to its authentic state. In a Sunday assertion, Repsol mentioned it has organized greater than 1,350 “correctly skilled” individuals to scrub the ocean and shoreline affected by the spill.
CNN’s Jose Armijo contributed to this report.