Back pain, grappling tides, defaced beaches: Frontliners on ECP oil spill clean-up

Workers form a human chain to transfer bags of oil-stained sand after cleaning the beach near Siglap Canal at East Coast Park on June 19, 2024.

On visits to East Coast Park on June 19 and 20, The Straits Times spoke to 11 local students kitted out in the same cap, gloves and rubber boots as the professionals they stood ankle-deep in sludge with. Workers cleaning the oil-stained beach near Marine Cove at East Coast Park at 4.30pm on June 19. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

“It’s hard for me because I’m too unfit,” he said. “There’s back pain from the bending, from the shovelling, too.” “The oil bags are heavy, about 4kg, and we have to keep transferring,” the 22-year-old added. “In half a day, three of us only managed to fill up half the cloth.”“Honestly speaking, we get to appreciate what the foreign workers are experiencing,” student Derius Khoo, 25, said. “They don’t get as many breaks as us. When we’re tired, we can just take a break.”

The numbers seem to back his sentiment. Within a day of the spill reaching beaches, the National Parks Boards’ call for volunteers had been answered by over 1,500 people. Marine stewards were inundated with requests to volunteer within minutes of issuing a call, said founder Sue Ye. But if the apparent burst of public interest in protecting Singapore’s coastlines is “overwhelming” - as Minister Desmond Lee put it - it is not unprecedented.

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