Oil reaches shore in South Korea's largest oil spill
Updated: 2007-12-08 18:25
MALLIPO BEACH, South Korea -- South Korea's largest oil spill reached part of the country's scenic and environmentally sensitive western shore Saturday as the Coast Guard struggled in high waves and strong winds to keep more oil from washing up on beaches.
Hundreds of troops, police and residents used buckets to remove dense crude oil from Mallipo -- one of South Korea's best-known beaches -- as tides of dark sea water crashed ashore. The odor could be smelled a kilometer (half a mile) away.
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, including snipe, mallards and great crested grebes.
Mallipo, about 150 kilometers (95 miles) southwest of Seoul, is one of the hardest-hit areas from the oil spill, which occurred Friday when a crane-carrying barge slammed into a supertanker, punching holes and causing it to release 66,000 barrels (10.5 million liters; 2.7 million gallons) of oil into the ocean.
The spill was the country's largest, involving twice as much oil as the worst previous spill in 1995.
The accident occurred about 7 miles (11 kilometers) off Mallipo.
The oil reached shore Saturday morning, contaminating about 7 kilometers (4 miles) of coastline near Mallipo, said Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon, west of Seoul.
Strong winds and prevailing currents spread the oil slick overnight to an area about 1 mile (2 kilometers) wide and 10 miles (20 kilometers) in length, he said.
"This is an enormous accident ... The smell is so strong that it causes a headache," said Lee Hee-yol, a village leader at Mallipo. "We've asked the government to declare this region as a disaster zone."
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