South Korea struggles to clean up blackened shore after country’s
largest oil spill
Thousands of people, some battling headaches and nausea from the
stench of crude oil, used shovels and buckets to clean the muck from a
once-scenic beach Sunday after South Korea’s worst oil spill.
About 7,500 people including Coast Guard, police and military
personnel, as well as civil servants and volunteers, were scooping up
oil that began washing ashore a day earlier from a damaged supertanker,
the Coast Guard said. Still more worked aboard 105 ships along South
Korea’s western coast, trying to clean the water.
“We are working hard and making progress in the cleanup operation,”
said Kim Woon-tae, a regional Coast Guard official.
The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the Hong
Kong-registered supertanker Hebei Spirit, rammed Friday by an
out-of-control South Korean barge, had been plugged Sunday and the
extent of affected coastline remained stable at 17 kilometers (11
miles).
A total of 66,000 barrels (10.5 million liters; 2.7 million gallons)
of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South
Korea’s worst previous spill in 1995. Kim Sun-seon, who works for an
ocean cleanup business in Busan, on South Korea’s southeast coast, wore
rubber gloves and a mask to help control the strong smell of crude. “We
don’t know when we can finish this work,” she said.
“We have been shoveling oil since yesterday but the waves just keep
bringing more oil. I feel dizzy.” At sea, Coast Guard personnel were
using a special oil fence to try to prevent more crude from coming
ashore. Mats to absorb oil were placed on the beach.
Mallipo beach, Sunday, AP |
