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Tanker could leak oil until 2006
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- The sunken Prestige tanker could go on leaking fuel oil until 2006, causing long-lasting damage to the coastline of north-west Spain, experts say. The massive oil spill from the sunken tanker "is the worst ecological catastrophe ever in Spain," Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the sunken vessel was spewing up to 125 tons of fuel oil a day into the Atlantic Ocean from nine cracks in its bow section and five in the stern. The oil takes a day to reach the surface from the three-mile-deep wreck. Emilio Lora-Tamayo, head of a scientific committee set up to analyse data on the tanker provided by the French mini-submarine Nautile, said it would take between a minimum of five and a maximum of 39 months to empty the tanks. This meant the Prestige, which broke in two and sank on November 19, might continue to leak oil until March 2006, he said. "When it comes to the flow, estimates are that there are some 80 tons per day leaking from the bow and around 45 tons from the stern. We are talking about 120 to 125 tons per day," Rajoy told reporters in the port city of La Coruna. Aznar has also admitted it is possible his government made mistakes in the early stages of the crisis, but has denied his administration bungled the crisis, as some critics say. The ship, which is on the seabed 130 miles (210 kilometres) off shore, has so far leaked no more than 18,000 tons, or 23 percent, of its 77,000 ton (20 million gallon) cargo of heavy fuel oil, Minister of Development Francisco Alvarez Cascos said. The oil slicks have polluted hundreds of miles of coastline, including 250 beaches. Experts say the slicks on the ocean surface are just part of the problem. Other slicks remain submerged, making them hard to track, until they are near the coast, when they suddenly surface near shore. The government early in the crisis said most of the tanker's oil was expected to congeal in near-freezing ocean temperatures. But Aznar said this week the government was now prepared for all possibilities, an indication that even the worst-case scenario has been considered -- that of all the oil spilling from the sunken tanker. Some 7,000 military personnel, fishermen and volunteers are continuing the clean-up in an area stretching from Spain's northwest border with Portugal northwards to Spain's border with France.
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