(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-14 14:06

BEIJING -- China has sent two vessels to assist in a crude oil clean-up operation after a supertanker collided with another ship near the Republic of Korea (ROK) coastline, the Ministry of Communications said on its website on Friday.

Xu Zuyuan, vice minister of communications, said the two ships, carrying more than 65 tons of oil-absorbing materials and heavy equipment, left Qingdao port in the eastern province of Shandong on Thursday night.

A week ago, the ROK barge, Samsung No. 1, hit the oil tanker Hebei Spirit from Hong Kong, sending more than 10,000 tons of crude oil into the Yellow Sea. Although the damaged tanker had stopped leaking, a ROK official said a long stretch of coastline had been polluted.

Xu said the dispatch of Chinese clean-up vessels was in response to a ROK emergency request. In 2003, Japan, Russia, the ROK and China all signed an agreement to jointly deal with large oil spills in the Pacific northeast.

The announcement also said a Chinese team of experts would travel to the spill site to provide technical support.

The spill, which stained one of the ROK's best-known beaches 150 kilometers southwest of Seoul, was the largest of its kind in the country. In 1995, another tanker, the Sea Prince, struck a reef and released 5,035 tons of oil into the water off the country's south coast.

Following the recent spill, the ROK government sent 90 vessels and six planes to the site to prevent further spread of the floating oil.