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Amazon oil spill in Ecuador was more than 6,000 barrels, company says
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Workers clean the oil residues of the spill at the Coca river in Puerto Maderos Village, Sucumbios province, Ecuador. /Getty Images

Workers clean the oil residues of the spill at the Coca river in Puerto Maderos Village, Sucumbios province, Ecuador. /Getty Images

The private company that runs an oil pipeline in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest on Wednesday said an oil spill due to a fractured pipeline the area spilled nearly 6,300 barrels into protected area.

On Friday, heavy rains triggered a mudslide in the eastern Napo province causing a rockfall which severed a pipeline resulting in the leak which affected about 21,000 square meters of the Cayambe-Coca nature reserve.

The company, OCP Ecuador, said about 5,300 barrels of oil had been "collected and reinjected" into the system since last week's accident.

According to the firm, the oil which had been recovered amounted to 84 percent of the total that leaked, the equivalent of 6,300 barrels.

The firm used large basins to collect the oil, an emergency measure used whenever a leak occurs.

The firm's president, Jorge Vugdelija, issued a statement saying people and machines had been deployed to "collect traces of crude found in the river."

The leaking oil flowed into the Coca river, one of the largest in Ecuador's part of the Amazon, which serves as a water source for many riverbank communities, including indigenous ones.

(With input from agencies)

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