The accident occurred near Mallipo beach, about 90 miles southwest of Seoul. The area is known for scenic beaches and is also home to a national maritime park and an important rest stop for migrating birds.
South Korea's Coast Guard dispatched dozens of ships Friday to try to contain 2.7 million gallons of oil from a supertanker spill and keep it from reaching an ecologically sensitive shoreline on the country's west coast.
Strong winds and currents early Saturday threatened to carry the oil slick toward fishing grounds and fish farms along the shore, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Crude oil gushed from a 146,000-ton Hong Kong-registered tanker after a Samsung Corp. vessel slammed into it. The spill was believed to be South Korea's largest, according to the Coast Guard and Maritime and Fisheries Ministry.
There were no casualties in the accident, the Coast Guard said.
Maritime authorities set up a five-mile fence to try to contain the oil slick, which measured 4.6 miles long and 1.2 miles wide, officials said. The Coast Guard said 46 ships, including navy and other government vessels, plus four helicopters, were involved in the cleanup operation.
The accident occurred near Mallipo beach, about 90 miles southwest of Seoul. The area is known for scenic beaches and is also home to a national maritime park and an important rest stop for migrating birds.
Chang Geun-ho, a ministry official, said the extent of environmental damage would depend on the success of the containment operation, though he added that cold winter temperatures could help slow the spread of the oil slick by freezing it.
Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon, 25 miles west of Seoul, said the cleanup operation would likely take at least three or four days.
The size of the leak reported by the authorities was about one-fourth that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that leaked 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.
A spill in South Korea in 1995, previously considered the country's largest, leaked about 1.4 million gallons of crude and fuel oil.
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang, Kelly Olsen and Jae-yeon Lim in Seoul contributed to this report.
Tanker mishap causes S. Korea's worst oil spill
Straits Times 8 Dec 07;
Strong winds and high waves hinder efforts to contain spill
SEOUL - SOUTH Korea yesterday suffered its worst oil spill when a crane-carrying vessel collided with a Hong Kong-registered oil tanker in seas off the country's west coast.
The collision left the 146,000-tonne tanker Hebei Spirit with three holes, causing the supertanker to leak about 10,800 tonnes of crude oil, officials said.
The accident took place around 7am local time (6am Singapore time). The spill triggered an emergency operation by about 40 coast guard and other ships as well as four helicopters, said ministry officials, who have set up a crisis centre.
The leak has since been stopped and a clean-up operation is now under way.
The spill 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 cost around US$2.5 billion (S$3.6 billion).
'Our initial investigation showed loose ropes linked to the towing vessel might have caused the accident,' said Mr Kim Jong Sik, an official with the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
Yonhap news agency said the tow ropes broke because of strong winds and high waves.
The Hebei Spirit was struck while at anchor off Daesan port in the Taean region.
Nobody was killed in the accident, but officials are concerned about the potential damage to communities and wildlife in the area.
'This is the country's worst oil spill. We worry about an ecological disaster,' said Mr Kim.
Another official from the ministry said that environmental and other damage from yesterday's spill would likely be less than that sustained in a 1995 incident.
Mr Jang Ki Pyo explained that this was because the oil would quickly freeze in the cold winter temperatures and because the accident took place 10km from the shores.
In the previous worst incident in South Korea, a tanker struck a reef in 1995 and spilt 5,000 tonnes of fuel oil onto the south coast, causing 44.3 billion won (S$69 million) worth of damage.
The Taean region's coast is popular for its beaches and is home to a national maritime park. It is also an important stop for migratory birds.
Wind and waves of up to 4m are hampering efforts to contain the oil spill, which officials said could reach the coast in less than 48 hours.
'The police face difficulty in carrying out the operation because high waves make it hard to contain the spill,' Mr Jeong Seon Mun, deputy director of the Maritime Safety Information Centre at the ministry, told Bloomberg.
But Mr Lee Jang Hoon, another official with the ministry, said the oil was unlikely to spread north to the major port of Incheon, which serves the capital.
Workers have been trying to transfer the oil to tanks that were not damaged in the collision, he said.
Industry sources and the Maritime Ministry said the crude was intended for South Korean refiner Hyundai Oilbank.
The company said that the damaged tanker had been destined for its Daesan refinery.
The refiner has said that it may reduce processing for several days.
REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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