Crews Battle Huge Oil Spill Moving Toward Morocco : Pollution: Crude from a disabled Iranian tanker could cause an ecological disaster. A second slick threatens the Canary Islands.

Cleanup crews spraying more than 15,000 gallons of detergent Tuesday battled a massive oil spill inching toward the Moroccan coastline, and a second leak in the region threatened the Canary Islands.

Atlantic winds in the next 24 hours could sweep 20 million gallons of crude oil from a disabled Iranian tanker onto Morocco’s coast in a major ecological disaster, navy officers said Tuesday.

Unseasonably calm seas during the last 48 hours have aided pollution experts in a race against time to contain the 185-mile slick from the stricken Iranian supertanker Kharg 5. Its tanks were ruptured by an explosion on the night of Dec. 18-19 while it was 50 miles off the Moroccan coast north of the Canary Islands.

Meanwhile, the 230,000-ton Spanish tanker Aragon developed problems with its helm and tanks and dumped an estimated 7.7 million gallons of oil into the sea Saturday northeast of the Portuguese island of Madeira, the Portuguese news agency LUSA and Lloyd’s of London shipping insurers reported.

The agency quoted Portuguese navy spokesman Cmdr. Monteiro Coelho as saying the oil slick was moving southward toward the Canary Islands.

In Morocco, thousands of jobs, miles of sandy beaches, wildlife reserves full of migratory birds and some of the world’s richest fishing grounds and oysters beds are at risk from the Iranian tanker spill that has drifted toward the northwest African shore.

The amount of leaking oil is double that released when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound last March in the worst such accident in U.S. history.

U.S. oil pollution expert Richard Golob said in New York that the Kharg 5 supertanker had been attacked and damaged by warplanes three times in the Iran-Iraq war.

The Dutch salvage company SMIT International suggested Tuesday that Morocco was partly to blame for delays in plugging the leak in the Iranian vessel because it refused to allow the ship to be towed into sheltered waters for repairs.

A spokesman for the company in Rotterdam said Moroccan and Spanish authorities had asked for the vessel to be towed out into stormy seas where it was impossible to make repairs.

French Environment Minister Brice Lalonde told French radio that precious time had been lost because of arguments over money between the Iranian owners and the Dutch salvage company after the 32-man crew abandoned ship Dec. 19.

Lalonde said the ship was still leaking. On Monday, Morocco had said the hole had been sealed.