- (Reuters) -- Salvage crews were battling to keep afloat
the battered bow section of the Prestige, barely afloat about 130 miles
off the coast in Atlantic waters 11,880 feet deep.
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- "It (the bow) will sink, definitely. It can happen
as we speak but it could take 10 or 24 hours. It's impossible to tell,"
said Lars Walder, spokesman for the Dutch company Smit Salvage, whose tugs
had been towing the wreck out to sea.
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- Experts said the ship's tanks might crack upon hitting
the sea floor, implode from the pressure or eventually rust through.
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- Walder said it might be possible to pump the remaining
oil from the tanks, but the depth of the sea and the bad weather would
make any such operation extremely difficult.
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- The tanker, chartered by the Swiss-based Russian oil
trader Crown Resources, was carrying twice as much oil as the Exxon Valdez
was when it ran aground in Alaska in 1989, causing a spill that devastated
a stretch of pristine wilderness. Spanish officials said the Bahamian-flagged
Prestige spilled 5,000 to 6,000 tons of its load when the vessel broke
apart, adding to the 5,000 ton-spill that had left a 10 mile oil slick
in its wake as it was pulled out to sea.
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- The oil has blackened the rugged coastline of Galicia,
thrown 1,000 Spanish fishermen out of work and coated sea birds.
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- One of Europe's richest fisheries -- habitat for such
delicacies as goose barnacles and lobster -- was under threat as the wind
blew more oil from the sinking ship toward the coast.
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- "If the oil tanker loses all its oil...if all that
escapes from the hull, then this is a disaster which is going to have twice
the effect of the Exxon Valdez, which is one of the worst that we have
known," Christopher Hails, the World Wildlife Fund International's
program director, said from Switzerland.
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- Toxic chemicals in the oil threaten to have "more
insidious and longer-term effects" on the ecosystem than the immediate
physical damage to marine life, Hails said. While the Exxon Valdez spilled
crude oil, the Prestige was carrying fuel oil, more harmful to wildlife.
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- Hails and environmentalists from Greenpeace said as much
oil as possible should be transferred from the ship's tanks.
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- Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, said three
cleanup ships were on the way to the scene, and there were tugs, helicopters
and reconnaissance planes around the bow section.
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- Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said
a Portuguese frigate would join a corvette already in the area.
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- But Smit Salvage's Walder said the heavy swell meant
nothing could be done to stop the oil slick heading for the coast.
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- "It may look calm and sunny on television but there
are five-meter (16-foot) waves, which is normal at this time of year. It
is impossible to stop it," Walder said.
-
- The wind and current were expected to push the oil toward
Spain's Galicia region for at least the next 48 hours, a spokesman for
Portugal's Hydrographic Institute said.
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- Asked if he feared an ecological catastrophe, Portuguese
Environment Minister Isaltino Morais said, "Naturally."
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- No European port had been willing to take in the stricken
vessel, whose hull cracked in an Atlantic storm last Wednesday. Salvage
tugs had tried to tow it out to sea to limit damage to the craggy coast
of Galicia, where seafood and summer tourism are vital to the local economy.
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- European Union officials said old, single-hulled tankers
like the Prestige would be banned from EU waters under legislation taking
effect in 2005. From next year they will face stricter inspections at EU
ports.
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- Some officials expressed shock that elderly ships like
the Prestige were still allowed to sail the high seas.
-
- "I am horrified by the inability of those in charge,
politically, nationally and particularly at European level, to take action
to stem the laxity which permits these ships fit only for the dustbin to
carry on," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters on a visit
near Paris.
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- "Now we must urgently take draconian measures, both
severe and serious, even if they harm the interests of certain companies
whose interests are not worth defending," he added.
-
-
- (Additional reporting by Richard Waddington in Geneva,
Ian Simpson and Martin Roberts in Lisbon, Madrid editorial team and Maria
Petrakis in Athens)
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