A huge new wave of fuel oil from the sunken tanker Prestige is closing in on the Spanish coast despite desperate efforts by cleanup ships and fishermen to keep it at bay.
The slick — containing as much as 11,000 tonnes of fuel oil — has threatened to inflict more environmental and economic damage on northwestern Spain, which is struggling to clean up from a first onslaught of oil.
The Bahamas-registered Prestige sank in deep Atlantic waters 11 days ago 210 km off the Spanish coast.
Strong southwest winds have driven the slick, released when the tanker sank, back towards Spain’s rugged Coast of Death — so-called because of its long history of shipwrecks.
Clean-up ships from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and Belgium are working offshore to vacuum up as much as possible of the fuel oil and stop it contaminating some of Spain’s richest shellfish areas.
AP
