Authorities scramble to clean-up California’s worst oil spill in years

California authorities and emergency responders were racing on Monday to contain the damage from a major offshore oil spill that the city of Huntington Beach described as an “environmental catastrophe”.

Popular beaches along a 24km stretch of coastline south of Los Angeles were closed from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach, city officials reported as crews scrambled to clean up one of California’s biggest spills in decades.

Fishing operations in the area were ordered halted, and wildlife has been killed due to the 480,000-litre spill of post-production crude that began leaking early Saturday from what officials said is a pipeline connected to an oil rig offshore.