Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press 8 Dec 07;
The stretch of coast is one of Asia's largest wetland areas, providing important habitat for immigrating birds.
Residents and emergency workers used buckets to remove dense crude oil from South Korea's western shore as the Coast Guard struggled in high waves and strong winds to contain the country's largest oil spill Saturday.
The oil was reaching scenic and ecologically sensitive areas. At Mallipo — one of South Korea's best-known beaches — tides of dark sea water crashed ashore, while the odor could be smelled a half-mile away. Hundreds of troops, police and residents were engaged in cleanup efforts there.
Oil was still trickling out of the tanker hit Friday, but Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official, said the last of three holes would soon be sealed completely. The Coast Guard headquarters had said Friday that all three punctured containers on the tanker were plugged.
The region is popular for its scenic beaches and is also the site of fish farms, a national maritime park and is an important rest stop for migrating birds.
Mallipo, about 95 miles southwest of Seoul, is one of the hardest-hit areas in the oil spill, which occurred Friday when a barge carrying a crane slammed into the supertanker, causing it to release 2.7 million gallons of oil into the ocean.
The spill involved about twice as much oil as the country's previous largest in 1995.
The oil reached shore Saturday morning, contaminating about 4 miles of coastline, said Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon. Strong winds and prevailing currents spread the oil slick overnight to an area about 1 mile wide and 10 miles in length, he said.
Environmental activists expressed anguish over the situation.
"It's helpless," said Lee Pyong-gook, an activist with the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement. "It's a sea of oil."
Lee said the region is a major stopover for migratory snipe. "It was fortunate that those birds have yet to arrive," he said, adding however, that some seagulls had been tarred by oil.
The Coast Guard sent 67 vessels and six helicopters to the site Saturday in an effort to clean up the spill, said Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official who is stationed in the region.
"We're doing our best to remove the contamination as quickly as possible, but it will take some time to clean up the shore because it needs to be done by hand," said Kim, who is stationed in the region. Kim also said it was difficult to predict how long it will take to remove oil from the sea.
The size of the leak reported by the authorities would be about one-fourth that of the 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons, of oil spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
The tanker, the Hebei Spirit, and the other vessel, owned by South Korea's Samsung Corp., were in no danger of sinking, the Coast Guard said. There were no casualties in the accident.
The tanker was at anchor, around 7 miles from Mallipo, and carrying about 260,000 tons of crude oil — about 1.8 million barrels — to be loaded into boats from a nearby port when it was hit by the South Korean barge, said Kim Tae-ho, another Coast Guard official.
The barge, which was being towed from a construction site by a small tug boat, lost control after a wire linking it to the tug was cut due to high winds, waves and currents, he said.
Kim said the Coast Guard planned to question the barge's captain as to why he was sailing through the area despite the stormy weather.
Associated Press writer Jae-Soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.
South Korea's worst oil spill hits near preserve
Lee Jin-joo, Reuters 8 Dec 07;
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean workers using skimmers and containment fences battled on Saturday to clean up the worst oil spill in the country's history, as part of the slick hit shore near a nature preserve on the west coast.
A Hong Kong-registered tanker began leaking an estimated 10,500 metric tons of crude oil on Friday after a barge carrying a crane slammed into it while the tanker was anchored off Daesan port about 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Seoul.
"A part of the slick reached the shores of Taean and onto the beaches. There are about 1,200 residents helping in the clean-up," said Cheon Myeong-cheol, a Taean coast guard official.
The region is popular for its beaches and home to a national park. It is also an important rest stop for migratory birds.
There has been no major impact yet on marine life where the first oil reached shore, according to the coast guard but that batch was only a small part of the entire spill.
The largest slick was about 13 kms (8 miles) long and spreading in Mallipo Bay, about 90 km southwest of Seoul, a maritime ministry official said.
"We're installing oil-containment fences to prevent further inflow," said Song Myeong-dal, head of the maritime ministry's Information and Policy Monitoring team.
The main slick was about a day or so away from hitting a west coast area that has marine farms and oyster beds, Song said. "We are taking all measures to prevent that from happening."
Heavy winds and high waves hurt oil containment efforts on Friday but seas were calmer on Saturday.
The leak is about a third of the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of crude oil onto Alaskan shores, which was the costliest on record.
That clean-up alone from that disaster cost around $2.5 billion while the total costs, including fines and settlement of claims, were an estimated $9.5 billion.
South Korea has dispatched 23 naval vessels, 34 oil skimmers, six helicopters and 67 patrol ships to help contain the slick. The Defense Ministry also mobilized hundreds of troops to help.
The very large crude carrier (VLCC) Hebei Spirit was about 5 miles outside the port, waiting to unload its cargo of some 260,000 tons of crude oil from the Middle East, when it was struck by the barge.
Technical managers of the MT Hebei Spirit said in a statement on Friday the crane aboard the barge punched holes in three of the tanker's tanks.
(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
South Koreans help clean up oil spill
Jin-Man Lee, Associated Press Yahoo News 8 Dec 07;
Residents and emergency workers used buckets to remove dense crude oil from South Korea's western shore as the Coast Guard struggled in high waves and strong winds to contain the country's largest oil spill Saturday.
The oil was reaching scenic and ecologically sensitive areas. At Mallipo — one of South Korea's best-known beaches — tides of dark sea water crashed ashore, while the odor could be smelled a half-mile away. Hundreds of troops, police and residents were engaged in cleanup efforts there.
Oil was still trickling out of the tanker hit Friday, but Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official, said the last of three holes would soon be sealed completely. The Coast Guard headquarters had said Friday that all three punctured containers on the tanker were plugged.
The region is popular for its scenic beaches and is also the site of fish farms, a national maritime park and is an important rest stop for migrating birds.
Mallipo, about 95 miles southwest of Seoul, is one of the hardest-hit areas in the oil spill, which occurred Friday when a barge carrying a crane slammed into the supertanker, causing it to release 2.7 million gallons of oil into the ocean.
The spill involved about twice as much oil as the country's previous largest in 1995.
The oil reached shore Saturday morning, contaminating about 4 miles of coastline, said Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon. Strong winds and prevailing currents spread the oil slick overnight to an area about 1 mile wide and 10 miles in length, he said.
Environmental activists expressed anguish over the situation.
"It's helpless," said Lee Pyong-gook, an activist with the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement. "It's a sea of oil."
Lee said the region is a major stopover for migratory snipe. "It was fortunate that those birds have yet to arrive," he said, adding however, that some seagulls had been tarred by oil.
The Coast Guard sent 67 vessels and six helicopters to the site Saturday in an effort to clean up the spill, said Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official who is stationed in the region.
"We're doing our best to remove the contamination as quickly as possible, but it will take some time to clean up the shore because it needs to be done by hand," said Kim, who is stationed in the region. Kim also said it was difficult to predict how long it will take to remove oil from the sea.
The size of the leak reported by the authorities would be about one-fourth that of the 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons, of oil spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
The tanker, the Hebei Spirit, and the other vessel, owned by South Korea's Samsung Corp., were in no danger of sinking, the Coast Guard said. There were no casualties in the accident.
The tanker was at anchor, around 7 miles from Mallipo, and carrying about 260,000 tons of crude oil — about 1.8 million barrels — to be loaded into boats from a nearby port when it was hit by the South Korean barge, said Kim Tae-ho, another Coast Guard official.
The barge, which was being towed from a construction site by a small tug boat, lost control after a wire linking it to the tug was cut due to high winds, waves and currents, he said.
Kim said the Coast Guard planned to question the barge's captain as to why he was sailing through the area despite the stormy weather.
Associated Press writer Jae-Soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.
South Korean oil spill washes onto coast: witnesses
Park Chan-Kyong, Yahoo News 8 Dec 07;
South Korea's worst-ever oil spill reached the country's southwest coastline on Saturday, polluting beaches and threatening valuable sea farms, witnesses and officials said.
More than 10,000 tonnes of crude oil gushed into the Yellow Sea after a Hong Kong-registered tanker was struck by a barge in high waves on Friday.
"This is not the sea we used to have. It's all dark brown. The sea waves are dark brown, the beach is scattered with greasy clumps of sand," a witness told AFP by phone from Euihangri beach, 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Seoul.
"Because of the pungent oily smell, it's even hard to breathe," said local resident Lee Choong-Kyung.
He said hundreds of people including volunteers were struggling to clean up but the operation was being delayed because of a lack of pressure washers and portable tanks.
At Mallipo beach, next to Euihangri, an oil slick stretching 15 kilometres (nine and a half miles) was washing up on the shoreline.
The single-hulled tanker, the 147,000-tonne Hebei Spirit, was berthed five miles (eight kilometres) off Mallipo, part of Taean County, when it was pierced in three places by the barge.
The barge, heavily loaded with a large crane, was being towed when a wire linking it to a tugboat broke in rough seas. The barge floated free and slammed into the port side of the tanker, tearing three holes in the hull.
"I woke up to a dark brown beach. The sand is crusted with brown slicks of oil," said Guk Jung-Ho, a village leader of Mallipo.
"Raw fish merchants stopped pumping sea water into their fish tanks. All the sea food may go bad now," he told AFP.
He said about 1,000 people, including 250 military troops, 150 policemen and 600 volunteers, were mobilised to mop up the oil.
"But we don't have even enough buckets to carry oil," he said.
"Our life is totally dependent on this beach and tourists. Almost all the 140 families here are living off seafood farms and who knows what will happen to the farms?"
A Taean County official said there was no immediate report of damage to the sea farms.
"We have to wait about a week before the picture may become clear," he said.
The ministry of maritime affairs and fisheries said six aircraft and a fleet of 67 ships, including fishing boats and vessels from coast guards and the navy, were engaged in the clean-up effort.
"A total of 2,000 people are struggling to clean up along the 17-kilometre (11 mile)-long coastline from Mohang in the south to Taean power station in the North," said Chun Myung-Chul, an official of the disaster control centre in Taean.
Most of oil bands have made it to the shoreline after the wind pushed them southeast, he said.
"We are scooping from pools of oil on the beach and putting them into cans or scraping the surface of the sand and putting the black crumps of sand mixed with oil into sacks," he said.
Booms were also set up for corralling oil as skimmers were collecting and removing the slicks from shore and on the water surface, he said.
Kwon Dong-Ok, head of the maritime police in Taean, called for the government to declare a disaster area and provide financial assistance.
"We are setting up booms to protect fishing farms," an official from the ministry said, adding that Taean County has 445 sea farms raising oyster, abalone and other seafood.
Authorities have been battling to contain the oil inside booms, as well as scattering chemicals on the slick and trying to suck up the spillage.
The tanker was anchored near waters designated as a national park before it was to sail into Daesan port to discharge its cargo.
The stretch of coast is one of Asia's largest wetland areas, providing important habitat for immigrating birds.
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