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Home::Environment

The Prestige oil disaster

Author : Mike McDougall

On November 13th 2002, the Liberian owned tanker, The Prestige,
ran into trouble in heavy weather off the coast of Galicia. The
240 metre single-hulled ship had burst one its tanks and was
starting to leak oil. The ships Greek captain called the Spanish
authorities for aid but instead of the expected tow-in he was
told to steer away from the coast and head North West. Similar
responses were sent out from Spanish and Portuguese coastal
authorities who were keen to see the foundering tanker kept away
from their shores. This ship got into serious trouble on the
sixth day of drifting when a 40 ft section of the hull came
away; she split in two that afternoon spilling a huge amount of
her 85,000 m³ cargo of oil into the Atlantic 250km from the
coast of Galicia. The Prestige sank entirely later that day in
over 3000 metres of water starting Spain's worst environmental
disaster.

The decision to take the ship away from the coast was not a good
one; by this time 5000 tons of fuel was already spilt and the
strong westerly winds that are prevalent in the region at this
time of year were already pushing a huge slick of oil towards
the Galician coastline. Galicia is one of Spain's most remote
regions and the population is very much coast dwelling with a
huge portion of the areas income coming from the sea - renowned
as an extremely rich fishing ground, the area is also home to
coral, sharks and thousands of seas birds. The oil hit Galicia
in droves; thousands of acres of beach were covered in oil with
thousands of dead puffins and razorbills (amongst other birds
and fish) washed up on the regions shores. With the wreck still
leaking 125 tons of its cargo everyday, the clean up operation
would have to get under way swiftly. 6000 seaman and an
estimated 2500 boats were stuck in port in the region which
includes Vigo, Europe's largest fishing port. The huge fishing
industry was crippled overnight - and it wasn't just the
fishermen who were affected, distributors and vendors saw their
livelihood shattered too.

The clean up operation was huge with a lot of volunteers lending
their weight to the effort. Thousands of tons of oil were
removed from beaches and aid was provided for hundreds of birds
covered in the Prestige's noxious cargo. Estimates reckon that
the disaster could cost somewhere in the region of €5million in
the ten years following the spill. It was six months until the
fishing fleets dropped their nets again and locals still
maintain that old fishing spots they frequented before the
disaster are now completely barren.

In the wake of the accident, huge international pressure has
raised many questions about the safety level of oil tankers. 80%
of the Prestige's 77,000 ton cargo was lost from the ship and
concerns about its safety were raised before the voyage. In the
wake of the incident many have called for the ban of
single-hulled tankers, the IMO (International Maritime
Organisation) called for their phasing out to be brought forward
and the European Commission did exactly that by moving the date
forward from 2015 to 2005. Pressure has also come from within
Spain about the governments handling of the crisis; it took
almost a year for the Spanish authorities to finally tell the
public exactly how much oil was spilt. Galician Environmental
movement "Nunca Mais" (Galician for "Never Again") felt the
government tried to cover up the scale of the damage and exactly
a year after the tragedy, they led a march in Santiago de
Compostela under the banner "We continue to demand solutions and
justice".

The effects of the disaster not only affected the Galician coast
- oil was washed up in Portugal, on the beaches of Normandy and
even England's south cast did not escape unscathed. Such is the
quantity of oil contained in tankers that that a spill can have
catastrophic affects - with thousands of single hulled tankers
still in operation there are fears that we're endangering our
environment unnecessarily.

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