There's been outrage in Spain after a beach was sprayed with bleach to protect children playing on the sand from the coronavirus.
The disinfectant has since "devastated" local wildlife who had been thriving on the beach since strict lockdown measures came into force across the country, keeping humans away.
Tractors were used to spray more than 2km of the beach at Zahara de los Atunes, near Cadiz, one day before Spain allowed children out of lockdown for the first time.
More than 23,800 people have died from COVID-19 across the country.
Environmentalists say the disinfectant "killed everything on the ground, nothing is seen, not even insects".
"Bleach is used as a very powerful disinfectant, it is logical that it be used to disinfect streets and asphalt, but here the damage has been brutal," María Dolores Iglesias, who heads an environmental volunteer group in the Cadiz region, said according to the BBC.
The sands and dunes are protected breeding and nesting places for migratory birds, with some nests and eggs destroyed by the machinery.
"They have devastated the dune spaces and gone against all the rules," she said. "It has been an aberration what they have done, also taking into account that the virus lives in people not on the beach. It is crazy.
https://twitter.com/greenpeace_esp/status/1254820110130450437?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"The beach has its own way of cleaning itself, it was not necessary."
Authorities have since apologised but the Andalusian regional government hasn't ruled out fining those responsible.
"I admit that it was a mistake, it was done with the best intention," local official Agustín Conejo said.
Greenpeace in Spain compared the situation to US President Donald Trump's suggestion that injecting people with disinfectant could cure the coronavirus.
"Fumigating beaches in the middle of the breeding season for birds or the development of the invertebrate network that will support coastal fishing... is not one of Trump's ideas," the organisation said on Twitter. "It is happening in Zahara de los Atunes."
Source: https://ift.tt/3d13Q5X
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