Kristen Roy / courtesy Leigh Day & Co.

A local farmer looks on as a piece of paper dipped in a pool in the area around the Bomu-Burry pipeline is shown partially covered with oil residue in October, 2011.

A troubled Shell oil pipeline in Nigeria ruptured, spilling around hundreds of gallons of crude oil a minute for around 24 hours, a member of a nearby community told msnbc.com on Tuesday.

"I saw oil coming out from the ground, like a stream, on the pipeline," Erabanabari Kobah, who lives near the Bomu-Bonny pipeline, told msnbc.com. 

"Coming from four different points that are leaking and in every one second from each of these point.  (It was) not less than two liters of oil are coming out every second," Kobah said, adding that he had filmed Sunday night's leak, although msnbc.com had yet to see the footage.

A company spokesman confirmed the onshore spill on the Bomu-Bonny pipeline in Nigeria's Delta region but said the company would not release any details related to it until an ongoing investigation involving the Royal Dutch Shell-run joint venture, SPDC, Nigerian regulators and representatives of the local community was complete.  

Landmark case: Nigerian villagers sue Shell over oil spills

The development could well complicate efforts for Shell, which is already facing a lawsuit for tens of millions of dollars in a London court for a leak on the same pipeline in nearby swampland.

Shell admits responsibility for two spills that devastated the Bodo fishing communities in the delta, a labyrinth of creeks and swamps.

The lawsuit, brought by 11,000 Nigerians from the Bodo community in the London High Court, concerns two oil spills in 2008/9 that they say destroyed their livelihoods and was at least 60 times worse than the company originally announced, advocacy group Amnesty International said on April 23.

Success for the claimants in the case would create a precedent that other communities affected by oil spills around the world might follow. It is being nervously watched by the oil industry.

100 miles of oil: Spill likely Nigeria’s worst in decade

Shell maintains that much of the oil spilled in the region is the result of theft and sabotage.  The case against the Shell rests on the contention that operational spills have caused extensive damage and, while there may be ongoing illegal theft from pipelines in the region, Shell are responsible for cleaning up the damage and compensating rural communities who have lost the fishing and farming income.

"If this was indeed operational failure, on the same pipeline from which the Bodo 2008 spills occurred, then it demonstrates an urgent need for the integrity of this particular pipeline to be reinforced or for it simply to be replaced," said Kristen Roy, of London-based law firm Leigh Day, which is representing the 11,000 Nigerians in the U.K.

Shell no longer operates in the area following lengthy disputes with local Nigerians about pollution, but still has pipelines and other infrastructure there and says it is committed to clearing up spills, whatever the cause.

PhotoBlog: Nigerian oil industry photos reveal extremes of poverty, wealth

 A United Nations report in August last year criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in Ogoniland, which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up that could take up to 30 years.

Kobah, a local environmental activist, said regardless of the outcome of the case against Shell he and others in the community wanted the company out of Nigeria. 

"I was brought up in that community and I can see an unbelievable change over time," he said. "Our trees are no longer producing fruit, harvests no longer produce food, the fishing is pathetic."

"I don't think Shell should be here anymore," he said. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Pius Utomi Ekpei / AFP - Getty Images, file

A man walks near spilled crude oil in the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in the Nigerian oil-producing region of Ogoniland, in June 2010.

LONDON -- Around 11,000 Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods were ruined in oil spills launched a legal battle Friday to seek compensation from Shell.

The case marks the first time any oil firm has faced claims in the U.K. from a community in the developing world for environmental damage caused by oil extraction operations, the villagers' lawyers said.

Shell, the largest international firm operating in Nigeria, admitted liability for two oil spills in August 2011. However, the two sides dispute the amount of oil spilled and the extent of the damage caused, one of the villagers' London-based lawyers told msnbc.com.

At the crux of the disagreement is whether the spills that devastated the area were due to so-called operational failures on the part of Shell, or if they were the result of sabotage, illegal refining and theft.

Farmers, fishermen
Shell Petroleum Development Company (Nigeria) has admitted responsibility for two spills amounting to around 4,000 barrels. 

However, experts representing people in the Bodo community, a network of 35 villages whose inhabitants were mainly subsistence fishermen and farmers, maintain that amount is closer to 600,000 barrels, one of the villagers' lawyers told msnbc.com.

100 miles of oil: Spill likely Nigeria's worst in decade

"We have urged them to have their expert work with our expert," said Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day & Co. "But (Shell has) totally refused."

Day said that negotiations broke down last week.

'No need for the legal activity'
Shell spokesman Jonathan French told msnbc.com that the firm cannot discuss details of the legal process, but said the company was dismayed that the case was going to court.

"There really has been no need for the legal activity which has delayed the the payout and cleanup," he said. "We accepted responsibility at the earliest point we could ... there was no need for this firm of London solicitors to take action."

PhotoBlog: Nigerian oil industry photos reveal extremes of poverty, wealth

"Nobody is saying is that there isn’t a problem with oil spills in the Niger Delta," French added. "The point is that there is this formula enshrined in Nigerian law that spells out level of compensation."

Instead of resorting to court, the villagers should have followed the process already in place in Nigeria, French said, adding that the involvement of law firms such as Leigh Day "can serve to delay compensation."

$1 billion cleanup tab in Nigeria oil mess, UN says

Shell paid out $4 million in compensation to victims of operational oil spills in 2009, and $1.7 million in 2010, French said.

Shell has been criticized for its behavior in Nigeria before.

In Aug. 2011, the United Nations released a report saying the company and the Nigerian government had contributed to 50 years of pollution in the Niger Delta that could need the world's largest ever oil cleanup. The work would take up to 30 years and require an initial tab estimated at $1 billion, the report said.

On February 17, Amnesty International issued a report saying that:

"Shell's failures persist despite significant evidence based calls on the company to make meaningful changes in the way it operates in the Niger Delta. In 2011 the evidence confronting Shell was confirmed in a ground-breaking study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that looked at the impact of oil pollution in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. The UNEP report confirmed that serious environmental damage had occurred in Ogoniland, one area of the Niger Delta, over many years. It found systemic failures in Shell’s approach to cleaning up pollution and rehabilitating land, which have exposed tens of thousands of people to a sustained assault on their economic, social and cultural rights."