The UN has launched a sixty-million dollar appeal to help clean a massive oil spill along Lebanon’s eastern Mediterranean coastline. Up to 15,000 tons of oil have poured into the sea following Israel’s bombing of a southern Beirut power station last month. On Thursday, U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner warned the environmental dangers are growing by the day.

• U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner: “Access to the area has been impossible, in terms of aerial surveys, first hand observations including taking water samples. And in that sense it remains an emergency because depending on the nature, the size and the movement of this oil slick it may not only be Lebanon and the southern coast of Syria that is affected. It may still affect others, it may spread further. The second reason why it remains an emergency is that with every day that passes without us being able to take remedial action on a significant scale the cost of actually coping with this oil slick will increase.”