Petrobras acknowledges new spill

The Brazilian state-run oil company, Petrobras, says an estimated 1,000 litres of toxic fuel additive have leaked from a pipeline near Rio de Janeiro.

Officials said they had contained the spill and were making plans to remove and treat all the contaminated soil nearby.

They were alerted over the weekend after residents in the town of Paracambi began complaining of nausea and a strong chemical smell.

It is the latest in a series of spills involving Petrobras, which has been fined tens of millions of dollars by the environmental authorities so far this year.

The toxic product released in the spill, methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, is known to cause cancer in animals.

It is used as an additive in petrol.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service