Nile water quality at risk after diesel spill

The water quality of the world's longest river has been put at risk after a diesel leak.

Over the weekend, a barge at Aswan in Egypt spilled 110 tons of diesel fuel into the Nile after low water levels caused it to partially submerge.

There is now great concern over the water quality of the Nile as the country takes a lot of its drinking water from it.

Speaking with the MENA news agency, Aswan governor Mustafa al-Sayed said that water purification sites along the river have now been blocked.

He stated that this should prevent the polluted liquid infecting the purified water that will be fed to people's homes.

The slick measured 60 metres wide and 1.2 miles long and is thought to be fragmenting as it travels down the river.

This latest spill is likely to anger Greenpeace campaigners further after the group recently hit out at oil giant BP for causing a "sorry of catalogue of … gaffes and failures" that led to the explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year.

Posted by Lauren Steadman