Korea's largest oil spill blackens shore

A South Korean environmentalist held a mallard covered in oil after a tanker was punctured early Friday. The oil is washing ashore and blackening an 11-mile stretch of scenic coastline. The 2.7 million-gallon oil spill is Korea's worst. (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement via Associated Press)

MALLIPO BEACH, South Korea - Thick, smelly crude oil washed up on an 11-mile stretch of scenic coastline yesterday, blackening sea gulls and threatening fish farms as South Korea's Coast Guard struggled to contain the country's largest oil spill.

Residents and emergency workers used buckets to try to remove the dense oil carried by strong winds and currents to the country's western coast.

Nearly 2,200 soldiers, police, and residents were engaged in cleanup efforts at Mallipo, one of South Korea's best-known beaches and an important rest stop for migrating birds. Tides of dark sea water crashed ashore, while the odor reached areas a half-mile away.

The government Coast Guard dispatched more than 60 ships and five helicopters to battle the spill. It said the area of shoreline affected by the disaster had more than doubled by yesterday evening, from 4 miles earlier in the day.

A Hong Kong-registered supertanker, the single-hulled Hebei Spirit, was struck early Friday by a Samsung Corp. barge in rough seas. A total of 66,000 barrels, or 2.7 million gallons, of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as leaked from South Korea's worst previous spill, in 1995.

Cho Yoo-soon, who runs a raw fish restaurant at Mallipo Beach, 95 miles southwest of Seoul, said the situation was overwhelming. She said restaurants in the area were closing, and she could not pump fresh sea water into her tanks.

"Without fresh sea water the fish will start going bad after a week," she said. "We can't even walk around here because the entire beach is covered with oil."

The affected areas are home to 181 maritime farms that produce abalone, brown seaweed, littleneck clams, and sea cucumbers, said Lee Seung-yop, an official with Taean County, which includes the beach. Sea farmers in the areas number about 4,000, he said.

Volunteers were scrubbing rocks and removing oil from the coast yesterday. The government also put up containment barriers to help minimize the environmental damage.

The government is expected to send more equipment and personnel to contain the spill today. The Coast Guard said it was unclear how many days the cleanup operation would take.

"We're doing our best to remove the contamination as quickly as possible, but it will take some time to clean up the shore because it needs to be done by hand," said Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official stationed in the region.

"It's a difficult operation because weather is not good," Kim said. "We're focusing our efforts on preventing more oil from reaching the coast."

Kim said oil was still trickling out of the punctured tanker, but it would soon be sealed. The Coast Guard headquarters had said Friday that all three holes in the tanker were plugged. Kim did not explain the apparent discrepancy.

"We've asked the government to declare this region a 'disaster zone,' " said Lee Hee-yol, a village leader at Mallipo.

Kim Kyung-chul, an official at the National Emergency Management Agency, said such a declaration, which would make residents eligible for government financial aid, was not yet being considered.

The government has so far designated the oil spill a "disaster," he said, which enables regional governments in the affected areas to mobilize personnel and equipment.

The size of the leak reported by the authorities is about one-fourth that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that leaked 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Heavy winds and high waves hampered oil containment efforts Friday, but seas were calmer yesterday.

The Hebei Spirit was struck while at anchor about 5 miles offshore. Technical managers of the tanker said a crane aboard the Samsung barge punched holes in three of the tanker's tanks. The barge had minor damage.

Starting in 2010, single-hulled tankers will be banned internationally, in favor of double-hulled vessels, which are less prone to spills.

Korea is the fourth biggest oil refining nation.

It was not determined how the spill would affect oil production at the Daesan refinery, but officials said they had no immediate plans to buy additional crude because they had a sufficient supply at the refinery.

Large oil spills at sea can kill thousands of marine animals and destroy habitats, as well as affect the fishing and the tourist industries. Exposure to hydrocarbons also can harm people's health.

Ocean spills can be contained with equipment such as booms and skimmers. Cleaning oil from beaches can involve gelling agents or chemicals to disperse the oil, as well as manual scrubbing, raking, and bulldozing.

The cost of the cleanup depends on the type of oil and area of the spill. Refined products such as diesel evaporate and dissipate more quickly than viscous crude oil.

Material from Reuters was included in this report.