Brazil, Venezuela offering help with oil spill, says Trinidad Prime Minister

Trinidad and Tobago is considering declaring an international emergency to deal with an oil spill that has stained miles of its shores and threatens to spread to its Caribbean neighbors, Prime Minister Keith Rowley said on Friday.

Brazil and Venezuela have offered to help contain and clean up oil leaking from a vessel that sank off the coast of Tobago last week, he said in an address to the nation's parliament.

Trinidad and Tobago are considering declaring a Tier 3 emergency that would allow it to obtain foreign assistance. The island nation has not determined who owned the vessel that sank and spilled thousands of barrels of oil, he said.