Yahoo News 9 Dec 07;
Thousands of troops and volunteers struggled Sunday to clear a thick layer of pungent crude oil off South Korea's stricken southwest coast after the country's worst ever oil spill.
The crew of the 147,000-tonne Hebei Spirit have finally stopped it leaking, officials said, pumping the remaining oil out of the last of three containers holed by a barge in a collision Friday.
But with over 10,000 tons of crude oil spilled into the Yellow Sea and now polluting a long stretch of coastline, most of the damage has been done.
A state of disaster has been declared in the region where beaches and farms dependent on the sea have been badly affected around Taean, 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Seoul.
More than 6,600 people, backed by 90 boats and six planes, fought to remove oil drifting at sea or washing onto beaches.
Booms were set up to contain the oil, and skimmers were working to collect and remove slicks from the water surface, the Taean coast guard said.
On the beaches, police, troops and volunteers carried buckets of sludge to huge rubber pools from which they scooped black, oil-mixed sand into sacks.
Three of five oil containers on the Hong Kong-registered tanker were holed in the collision, coast guard officials said.
Two had been emptied by Saturday, and the third was pumped dry overnight.
"The crew on the tanker was able to pump crude oil in the third damaged container into an undamaged one overnight," a coast guard official in Taean told AFP.
"The tanker has stopped leaking since early Sunday," he said, adding "they are still mopping up oil, but it's not work to be done in a few days."
Lee Bong-Gil, who heads the Korea Coast Guard's maritime pollution bureau, told Yonhap news agency: "The large size of the spill has made the containment difficult, but there will be no significant expansion of the oil considering the tide, wind and their speeds."
Local county officials Sunday reported that the oil slick washing onto the beaches in Taean was already 17 kilometres long and 10 metres wide.
"The sea farms there are badly affected by the oil spill. No one knows how many years it will take for them to recover from the damage," Park Tae-Soon, a a county official in Taean, told AFP.
He said that while there was no official damage report available yet, there were 445 sea farms in the area for oyster, abalone, clam and other seafood.
Residents near the beaches of Euihangri and Mallipo also reported pungent oil smells.
The tanker was berthed five miles off Mallipo, near waters designated as a national park, when it was struck by the barge.
The barge floated free and slammed into the port side, tearing three holes in the tanker's hull, when a wire linking it to a tug broke in rough seas.
This stretch of coastline is one of Asia's largest wetland areas, providing important habitat for migrating birds.
The Hebei Spirit had been due to sail into the port of Daesan to discharge its cargo when it was holed.
Thousands clean up spilled oil in South Korea
Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Dec 07;
Thousands of people mobilized by South Korea's Coast Guard used shovels and buckets Sunday to clean up a disastrous oil spill polluting a swathe of the country's scenic and environmentally rich western coast.
About 100 ships, including Coast Guard, navy and private fishing boats, were also to help contain and clean up South Korea's worst spill, said Coast Guard official Kim Young-hwan.
At total of 7,500 police, military, civil servants and volunteers struggled to remove the oil, some battling headaches, dizziness and nausea.
The oil started hitting beaches Saturday, a day after a Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed by a South Korean-owned barge that came unmoored from its tugboat in rough seas about seven miles off Mallipo, one of South Korea's best-known beaches. The area also includes a national maritime park.
On Saturday, tides of dark sea water crashed ashore at Mallipo beach, while the odor reached areas a half-mile away.
Kim Sun-seon, who works for an ocean clean-up business on South Korea's southeast coast, wore rubber gloves and a mask to cope with the strong smell.
"We don't know when we can finish this work," she said. "We have been shoveling oil since yesterday but the waves just keep bringing more oil. I feel dizzy."
Nearly 2.8 million gallons of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea's worst previous spill in 1995.
Thick, smelly waves of crude washed ashore, turning seagulls black and threatening fish farms along an 11-mile stretch of coast, defying efforts to contain it by dropping oil fences into the ocean and using chemicals to break it up. Mats were placed on the beach to absorb the oil.
The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the tanker had been plugged Sunday morning.
Mallipo, an important stopover for migrating birds including snipe, mallards and great crested grebes, also has an abundant fishing industry.
Choi Kyung-hwan, a 58-year-old fisherman, came to the beach Sunday to help, but despaired for the area where he has lived for 30 years.
"Mallipo is finished," he said.
Choi, wearing a thick winter coat, said the strong odor of oil had sickened his wife.
"But I came here because I have to do something," he said. "I don't know when we can finish. But we have to continue."
Cho Yoo-soon, who runs a raw fish restaurant at Mallipo beach, 95 miles southwest of Seoul, said the situation was overwhelming. She said restaurants in the area were closing, and she could not pump fresh sea water into her tanks.
"Without fresh sea water, the fish will start going bad after a week," she said. "We can't even walk around here because the entire beach is covered with oil."
The affected areas include 181 maritime farms that produce abalone, brown seaweed, laver, littleneck clams and sea cucumbers, said Lee Seung-yop, an official with the Taean county government, which includes the beach. Aquatic farmers in the area number about 4,000, he said.
"A lot of damage is feared to these farms, although we don't have an estimate yet," Lee said Saturday.
Local raw fish restaurants such as Lee Ok-hwa's were suffering.
"I haven't had any customers since news of the oil spill Friday," said Lee, who had previously served 200 tourists and others a day.
"I don't know how to make a living," she said. "I don't know how to pay the rent. I believe this situation will last for at least one year."
The central government has designated the oil spill a "disaster," which makes it easier for regional governments to mobilize personnel, equipment and material to cope with the situation. But it stopped short of declaring the region a "disaster area," which would make residents eligible for government financial aid.
Last year, more than 20 million tourists visited the area, home to 63,800 people.
The Coast Guard said it was unclear how many days the clean-up would take.
The accident occurred Friday morning when a barge carrying a crane en route from a construction site lost control after a wire linking it to the tugboat was cut due to high winds, waves and currents. The vessel then slammed into the Hebei Spirit tanker. Neither ship was in danger of sinking and there were no casualties.
The tanker had been at anchor and carrying about 260,000 tons — about 1.8 million barrels — of crude oil to be loaded into boats from a nearby port.
The size of the leak reported by the authorities would be about one-fourth that of the 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons, spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
The spill was also smaller than one in Pakistan in 2003 when a Greek-registered ship ran aground near Karachi, leaking some 8.2 million gallons of crude that polluted the city's main beaches.
Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.
