By DPA
Seoul : More than 40 km of South Korea’s western coastline has been coated in oil after a collision involving a tanker, a spokesman for the maritime and fisheries ministry said Monday.
The slick in the Yellow Sea stretched for 150 km, he said, after a barge rammed the Hong Kong-registered super tanker Hebei Spirit Friday, spilling an estimated 10,500 tonnes of oil.
Nearly 9,000 people, including teams of crew from environmental cleanup companies, soldiers and residents were working to contain and clean up the oil in the largest spill in South Korea’s history.
Officials were planning to declare the coastal area in Taean county, about 120 km south of Seoul, as a special disaster zone, the ministry spokesman said. Under such a declaration, affected residents and the maritime industry would receive more state aid more quickly than the government normally provides to victims of natural disasters.
The Hebei Spirit was eight km northwest of the Taean peninsula, 110 km southwest of Seoul, waiting to enter port when it was rammed by an unmanned barge carrying a crane.
The crane punched three holes into the tanker that had a cargo of 260,000 tonnes of crude oil. The barge had loosened itself from a tug in stormy weather.
Rescue workers finally managed to seal the holes in the tanker.
The previous oil-spill record was set in 1995 when a 144,567-tonne tanker, Sea Prince, struck a reef, releasing 5,035 tonnes of oil in waters off the south coast.