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Oily SeaThe South Korean government declared a "state of disaster" as the oil slick began hitting the shores of Taean early Saturday (8 Dec). The spill now threatens the livelihood of an area that includes beaches like Shinduri and better-known Mallipo, which is considered one of South Korea's most scenic areas and serves as an important stopover for mallards, great crested grebes and others migrating birds.
The oil spill has done irreparable damage to Taean's shores ecologically. Experts say leaving the cleanup to nature will take at least 10 years and could take as much as 100 years.
A bird covered in fuel from the spill of a Hong-Kong-registered oil tanker sits on the beach near South Chungcheong Province.
Volunteers collect spilled oil on Mallipo Beach in Taean County, South Chungcheong Province after a slick leaked from a
supertanker in waters off Taean County reached the western coastline.
Some of the 7,500 volunteers who helped scoop up the oil from the beach, including civil servants and members of the coast guard, police and military, contended with headaches and nausea from the petroleum's stench.
South Koreans struggle to clean up the beaches.They even scoop oil up with spades.
Left pic: A resident uses buckets to try to clean up the dense crudeoil from the beach. About 2.7 million gallons of oil gushed
from the supertanker. Right pics: Other clean-up work in progress.
Locals form a line to carry buckets full of oil off the beach.The spill is South Korea's largest, dumping twice as much
oil into the sea as a spill in 1995.
Oil-filled buckets from the beach are dumped into an inflatable container.Still others worked aboard 105 ships along South Korea's western coast trying to clean the sea, plugging the leaks in the tanker, dropping oil fences into the ocean and using chemicals to break up the slick.
Coast guards spraying chemicals on the slick in an effort to disperse it
Local fishermen have raised barriers in an attempt to prevent the oil from contaminating
their seaweed farms
Sources:
- South Korean oil spill damages seafood farms, casts shadow over tourism
- BBC In Pictures: South Korea slick clean up
Related post:
South Korea's largest oil spill in history
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3 Comments:
it's so sad reading about this, i hope that the company that owns the tanker takes responsibility for this. and to all the volunteers and workers, fighting!!
yeah, what sad news. *sniff* :-(
Its so good to see the efforts being made to clean up. So many countries and people just dump their oil into the ocean or spill it and count it as lost. Here they are communing to get the oil out.
I love you korea.
~A
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