Spanish fishermen armed with shovels and shrimping nets today fought to keep oil from a sunken tanker from reaching a shellfish-rich area, as new slicks headed toward untouched coastline, including neighboring France.
"We are in a state of alert," an official from the marine fishermen's association in the Arosa inlet said as 15 trawlers were dispatched to protect Europe's largest production area of sea mussels.
Glistening patches of heavy fuel oil, meanwhile, have spread out beyond the Galician coastline, threatening to extend the pollution that has already hit several hundred kilometers (miles) of Spain's picturesque northwestern coastline between La Coruna and Cape Finisterre.
A massive 9,000-tonne slick has now divided into smaller patches, and part of the oil has rounded the northwest corner of Spain and headed up toward Asturia, closer to France on the Bay Biscay.
French naval and customs planes spotted oil patches in a fly-over of the region located around 250 to 300 kilometers (155 to 185 miles) from the French coast, the Atlantic maritime department said.
Asturian firefighters found other patches around 10 nautical miles out to sea from the northern port town of Gijon, the regional government said.
Rescue crews worked frantically today to set up a floating barrier to the entry of another ecologically sensitive inlet bordering Galicia and Asturia, home to the shellfish and fish which forms the economic backbone of the region.
More toxic oil has sloshed even further south in Galicia to the mussel-rich Arosa, which had never before been hit by an oil spill.
A battery of anti-pollution vessels from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway, were still stationed along a 500-kilometer stretch of waters off the polluted coast, where they have pumped more than 5,500 tonnes from the sea.
AFP