King Juan Carlos will visit the polluted beaches of Spain's northwestern coast today as storms kept pushing a 9,000-tonne slick of heavy oil from a sunken tanker toward the shore.
The king, making his first tour of the region since the sinking of the
Prestige
tanker on November 19th, will visit beaches at Laxe and Muxia, southwest down the Galician coast from La Coruna. He will also observe clean-up efforts and meet representatives of the region's hard-hit fishing industry.
Several hundred kilometres of some of Spain's most picturesque coastline have been affected, including 164 beaches, between La Coruna in the north and Cape Finisterre further south, according to government figures.
The Prestige, an ageing Liberian-registered tanker flying a Bahamas flag and carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, began leaking oil in rough seas on November 13th and spilled an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes into the sea before sinking.
Westerly winds have pushed slick directly onto already blackened beaches frustrating clean-up efforts of a battery of anti-pollution vessels that have tried to form a barrier off the coast.
The specialised vessels from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Norway, stationed along a 500-kilometre stretch of ocean, have been unable to reach the remaining major slick floating around 30 kilometres off the coast. They have so far pumped some 5,500 tonnes from the sea, government officials said.
New vessels from Britain, Denmark and Italy are expected on to join the clean-up efforts today and tomorrow.
The French submarine Nautileleft the Spanish port of Vigo yesterday headed for the Prestigewreckage site, about 250 kilometres out to sea. Once rough seas and winds abate sufficiently, it will plunge 3,500 metres to investigate the remaining 60,000 tonnes of oil thought to be still held in damaged containers.
AFP