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Dreaded oil slick from Spanish tanker to hit coast over weekend
La Coruna (Spain), Nov 30: Fierce winds has pushed the largest slick yet from a sunken tanker - some 9,000 tonnes of heavy fuel - towards Spain`s Atlantic coast, where residents scrambled to protect fisheries before the black tidewas expected to hit shore this weekend.
La Coruna (Spain), Nov 30: Fierce winds has pushed the largest slick yet from a sunken tanker - some 9,000 tonnes of heavy fuel - towards Spain`s Atlantic coast, where residents scrambled to protect fisheries before the black tide
was expected to hit shore this weekend.
The Spanish government`s number two man Mariano Rajoy said the huge slick, containing most of the oil that spilled last week from the tanker prestige, was "only 30 kilometers away and moving closer."
Enrique Lopez Veiga, a fisheries official in the Galicia regional government, said it was now inevitable that the huge slick would hit local coasts probably tomorrow unless there was a sudden change in currents.
"We are getting the worst possible wind at the worst possible moment," he told a local radio station.
It would be the second slick to hit Galicia since the tanker spilled at least 10,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil before it broke in two and sank 200 kilometers off Spain on November 19.
The first wave of pollution sullied 400 kilometers of coastline in Galicia - a curve of land that juts into the Atlantic between La Coruna to the North and Cape Finesterre to the south that is home to both treasured species of flora and fauna and a major fishing industry.
Rajoy, who spoke at a Madrid press conference, said the new slick was expected along beaches already dirtied last week. "It should not go into zones spared by the fuel, it should not be any different," he said.
Bureau Report
The Spanish government`s number two man Mariano Rajoy said the huge slick, containing most of the oil that spilled last week from the tanker prestige, was "only 30 kilometers away and moving closer."
Enrique Lopez Veiga, a fisheries official in the Galicia regional government, said it was now inevitable that the huge slick would hit local coasts probably tomorrow unless there was a sudden change in currents.
"We are getting the worst possible wind at the worst possible moment," he told a local radio station.
It would be the second slick to hit Galicia since the tanker spilled at least 10,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil before it broke in two and sank 200 kilometers off Spain on November 19.
The first wave of pollution sullied 400 kilometers of coastline in Galicia - a curve of land that juts into the Atlantic between La Coruna to the North and Cape Finesterre to the south that is home to both treasured species of flora and fauna and a major fishing industry.
Rajoy, who spoke at a Madrid press conference, said the new slick was expected along beaches already dirtied last week. "It should not go into zones spared by the fuel, it should not be any different," he said.
Bureau Report