Obama arrives in Louisiana to tour oil spill area

LOUISIANA - US President Barack Obama has arrived in the US state of Louisiana to start his tour of a region that is threatened with an ecological disaster thanks to an oil spill from a sunken oil platform.

The president’s plane, Air Force One, landed in New Orleans. Louisiana, one of four states to declare a state of emergency after the Deep Water Horizon platform sank two weeks ago, is at particular ecological and economic risk.

Obama plans to travel to the city of Venice to visit Coast Guard staff working to control the oil spill and to learn more about countermeasures being employed against the spreading oil slick.