CAMELLE - Rescue crews off Spain's northwestern coast fought yesterday to keep a giant oil slick from becoming a major environmental disaster as dead and oil-covered sea birds began appearing on shore.
Rough seas have made it impossible to transfer the 70,000 tonnes of oil carried by the 26-year-old tanker Prestigeafter it shed more than 3000 tonnes into the sea when it was damaged in a storm off the Galician coast last week.
Environmental groups fear the Prestige will break in two and dump all her cargo.
The World Wildlife Fund said if that happened the spill could be twice the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska, one of the worst in history.
Oil had yesterday resumed seeping from the Prestige, which has been towed 110km from the Spanish coast, but a Government spokesman said the fuel probably came from a crack and did not mean that another of the ship's tanks had ruptured.
Fishermen along the rugged Galician coast were counting the cost as waves of thick, tar-like oil reached the harbours of several picturesque villages, threatening the fishing and shellfish industry that is the area's economic mainstay.
