TAEAN (South Korea): Envi-ronmentalists warned on Tuesday that South Korea’s southwest coast could take years to recover from the country’s worst oil spill, as nearly 20,000 people worked to halt the spread of the sludge.

Troops, police and volunteers used buckets and spades to clean some 150kms of coastline, known for its pristine beaches, rich marine farming areas and a resting place for migratory birds, said Sung Nam-Cheon, an official at the disaster centre in Taean county.

Five planes and 220 ships were also deployed against the crude oil slick, which has coated 212 marine farms and 15 bathing beaches. A slick still out at sea stretches 70kms.

“Today, the oil slick is spreading slowly due to improved weather conditions. But we are desperate to stop the expansion,” Sung said. “In case of strong winds again, it will quickly flow towards the coast.”

About 10,500 tons of crude leaked into the Yellow Sea when a drifting barge carrying a construction crane smashed into an anchored oil tanker on Friday.

The barge’s cable to a tugboat had snapped during rough weather before it holed the 147,000-ton Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit in three places. Environ-mentalists say the disaster will deal a huge blow to the scenic coastline, which is also popular with tourists and is home to oyster and abalone farms.

“The ecosystem has been devastated at coastal areas in Taean,” said Chohan Hye-Jin, spokeswoman for the Korean Federation for the Environm-ental Movement. She said more work was needed to gauge the impact but noted that oil sludge was still being found on the seabed off the southern port of Yeosu, after the country’s previous worst oil spill in 1995.

“The damage is so immense that we can hardly predict how long it will take to recover,” said Lee Jae-Hak of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute. “It will take tens of years, though not hundreds of years, to return the maritime ecosystem to normal.”

The government faces mounting accusations it acted too slowly to limit the disaster. Lee said on Monday the damage had been greater than expected because officials did not take seasonal winds into consideration when they set up oil booms, which float on the surface and block slicks from spreading.

Sung said on Tuesday that workers had stepped up efforts to set up booms at the mouth of Garorim Bay, where a thin layer of oil has now been spotted. The bay has a concentration of marine farms covering 4,823 hectares. Salvage workers were also trying to stop the slick from spreading into a bay near Anmyeon island, a major fish farm area and resting place for migratory birds.

The number of people involved in the cleanup — some 19,350 — is more than double the figure reported on Monday, when the government announced it would declare parts of Taean county, 110kms southwest of Seoul, a disaster zone.

Shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries, which operated the barge and tug, has said the tanker’s owner would be able to receive a maximum $326m through an insurer to cover damage from the spill. Samsung was responsible for compensating the shipowner, a spokesman said on Monday.

“We are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by police. But we are basically responsible for the incident,” the spokesman said. “We will not swerve from our duty.”—AFP