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Oil Spill Threatens Corals in Eastern Thailand

Vessels wait to clean oil spills caused by a leak from an undersea pipeline 20 km (12.4 miles) off Thailand's eastern coast at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province, Thailand, January 30, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun
Vessels wait to clean oil spills caused by a leak from an undersea pipeline 20 km (12.4 miles) off Thailand's eastern coast at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province, Thailand, January 30, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun
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Oil Spill Threatens Corals in Eastern Thailand

Vessels wait to clean oil spills caused by a leak from an undersea pipeline 20 km (12.4 miles) off Thailand's eastern coast at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province, Thailand, January 30, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun
Vessels wait to clean oil spills caused by a leak from an undersea pipeline 20 km (12.4 miles) off Thailand's eastern coast at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province, Thailand, January 30, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

Authorities are rushing to prevent an oil spill in eastern Thailand from damaging fragile corals, after officials said on Sunday the leak that began last week was drifting towards more coastal areas.

Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Varawut Silpa-archa said it was crucial to try to prevent the main mass of oil from reaching the shore at Ao Prao, a small bay on Koh Samet, which is a popular resort island.

"If the oil reached inside this area it could impact the beach and cause heavy damage to the shallow water corals," Varawut said, Reuters reported.

The oil began leaking from a pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining Public Company Limited (SPRC) (SPRC.BK) late on Tuesday.

Before it was brought under control, an estimated 50,000 litres (13,209 gallons) of oil escaped into the ocean 20 km (12 miles) from the coastline of eastern Thailand.

Mae Ramphueng Beach in Rayong province declared a disaster area after some oil came ashore there late on Friday.

The latest satellite image from the government's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) showed the oil spill has spread to cover 67 sq km (25.87 sq miles) area of the sea.

Most of the oil had formed a thin film rather than a thick oil slick, navy spokesman Vice Admiral Pokkrong Monthatphalin told reporters, citing aerial photographs.

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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

Two Chinese astronauts this week completed a world-record spacewalk of more than nine hours, according to a statement from China's Manned Space Agency, marking another milestone for Beijing's rapidly expanding space program.

The spacewalk, carried out by Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong outside the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit on Tuesday, was at least four minutes longer than the last record set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, according to Reuters.

The two astronauts of China's Shenzhou-19 mission donned their Feitian spacesuits to carry out an array of tasks on the station's exterior, including the installation of space-debris protection devices, China's space agency said.

"They successfully completed all the planned tasks and felt very excited about it," Wu Hao, a staffer from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told China Central Television, a state broadcaster.

The former Soviet Union in 1965 became the first nation to carry out a spacewalk. Since then, Russia and the United States have conducted hundreds of such missions, primarily outside the International Space Station for tasks ranging from solar panel installations to materials research.

The first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut occurred in 2008.

China's spacewalking milestone this week comes amid a flurry of other recent cosmic achievements that have boosted Beijing's competitive footing with the United States.

China landed its first rover on Mars in 2021 and earlier this year became the first country to retrieve rock samples from the moon's treacherous far side in its Chang'e-6 mission.

Beijing is targeting 2030 to land its first astronauts on the moon to become the second country after the US to put humans there. Beijing has courted roughly a dozen countries for its International Lunar Research Station program, an effort to build a moon base on the moon's south pole.

That program rivals NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission of 1972.