2.5 Million Gallon Oil Spill

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By WKRG Staff/APTN

M50o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr 2.5 Million Gallon Oil Spill

Published: Sun, December 09, 2007 - 12:25 pm
Last Updated: Sunday, December 09, 2007 - 12:35 pm

Thousands of people, many suffering headaches and nausea from the stench of crude oil, used shovels and buckets to clean the muck from a once-scenic beach on Sunday, following South Korea's worst oil spill.

Coast Guard officials mobilized thousands of people on 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 brought in to help contain and clean up the spill which has affected many birds and sea life in the Mallipo Beach area.

It is not yet known how many birds have died from the huge oil leakage, but many environmental activists were on site and had set up cleaning stations to remove the grunge from birds' plumage using strong detergents.

One environmental activist, Kim Shin-hwan, said he was worried about the longer term effects of the oil disaster.

"I'm worried about the damage in the future more than the current situation. It becomes an issue when the crude oil is floating on the water. That's when the seagulls or other creatures will be damaged and killed even more," he said.

The oil spill occurred about 11 kilometers (seven miles) off Mallipo beach on Friday, when a Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed by a South Korean-owned barge that came unmoored from its tugboat in rough seas.

A total of 66-thousand barrels of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea's worst previous spill in 1995.

The oil started hitting beaches, including Mallipo, on Saturday.

Local fishermen in the area were very worried about the effects of the spill on their livelihoods.

"We cannot even guess how long this will go on. All the fish have died, including the little ones. We cannot guess when we can restore our resources," said 60-year-old fisherman Kim Dong-hui.

The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the tanker had been plugged on Sunday as the clean up operation continued.

Mallipo is one of South Korea's best-known beaches, an important stopover for migrating birds, including snipe, mallards and great crested grebes, and had a thriving fishing industry.

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