The Selangor water authority today discovered a substance, believed to be waste oil, illegally dumped into the Klang River. — Picture courtesy of Facebook/Lembaga Urus Air Selangor

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — The Selangor water authority today discovered a substance, believed to be waste oil, illegally dumped into the Klang River.

Lembaga Urus Air Selangor (LUAS) director Datuk Hashim Osman told Bernama they were alerted at about 6pm and his officers have taken steps to prevent the pollution from spreading.

“So far, based on the information received, it is believed that the chemicals were poured into a drain and flowed into Klang River,” he told the news agency.

He added that investigations were being carried out to identify the chemical and determine how far the pollution had spread.

This evening, LUAS posted an image of a contaminated section of the river on its Facebook page.

In an update later, it identified the pollutant as waste oil and said that the affected section of the river was at Taman Eng Ann in Klang.