Tanker Splits, Sinks Off Western Spain

A damaged oil tanker broke in two off the craggy northwest coast of Spain and sank Tuesday, threatening an environmental disaster from a spill twice as large as the one from the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

The single-hull Prestige was carrying intermediate-grade fuel oil, which is less toxic than crude oil but so thick that it can smother birds and marine mammals with a tar-like goop.

The ship ruptured last Wednesday during a storm, sustaining a 40-foot-long crack in the hull below the waterline. In a desperate attempt to limit the environmental damage, the Spanish government ordered it towed out to sea.

But the effort failed. The ship spilled about 5,000 tons of oil as it broke up, adding to the 5,000 tons leaked earlier.

Spanish beaches were already mired in oil, with birds and shellfish dying in the sludge. At least 1,000 Spanish fishermen have been thrown out of work along the Galician coast, which boasts one of Europe’s richest fisheries. The northern part of the area has already been dubbed “the Coast of Death.”

The Prestige was carrying 77,000 tons of fuel oil loaded in Latvia and bound for Singapore. If it loses its entire cargo, the incident would rank 14th among tanker spills.

The biggest spill was that of the Atlantic Empress off Trinidad and Tobago in 1979, at 287,000 tons. The Exxon Valdez leaked 34,000 tons of crude oil.

Several European countries and the European Union quickly attacked one another over the incident.

“I am horrified by the inability of those in charge, politically, nationally and particularly at the European level, to take action to stem the laxity which permits these ships fit only for the dustbin to carry on,” French President Jacques Chirac told reporters on a visit near Paris. “Now we must urgently take draconian measures, both severe and serious, even if they harm the interests of certain companies whose interests are not worth defending.”

The 26-year-old Japanese-built Prestige was owned by a Liberian-registered firm; it is registered in the Bahamas, managed in Greece, chartered by the Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources and classed as seaworthy by the American Bureau of Shipping, authorities said. This adds to the difficulty of pinpointing where greatest responsibility for the disaster might lie.

“There is a total lack of control of maritime traffic,” said Jose Luis Garcia Varas, a World Wildlife Fund marine expert in Spain. “Authorities don’t care much about what happens in the sea. Take the Spanish government -- dragging the ship away from the Galician coast doesn’t solve the problem. The spill is still in the sea. And, in the end, the sea returns what you throw in it.”

The government defended its actions.

“The Spanish administration’s decision to keep the ship far away from the coast is based on trying to keep away the source of contamination from the Spanish coast,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Tuesday while visiting the area.

“This was especially important if new cracks appeared in the tanks or even if the ship broke. Having the source of pollution farther away from the coast would give us much more time to fight it in the sea, more time to monitor it and more time to have fighting measures available.”

The ship sank in two-mile-deep ocean 133 miles off the coast and a dozen miles from the Galician Bank, a relatively shallow seamount known for its rich and abundant diversity of coral, sponges, fish and other sea life.

European conservationists have been lobbying for the Galician Bank to be added to the world’s list of designated “particularly sensitive sea areas.” That designation by the U.N. International Maritime Organization can restrict shipping traffic to protect fisheries and marine life habitat. The Florida Keys and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are among a handful of oceanic areas with such a designation.

“It is certainly a disaster,” Garcia said. The area is home to 11 species of sharks, 86 other species of fish, including some found nowhere else, and one of the most important cold-water coral formations off the European coast, the World Wildlife Fund said in a news release Tuesday. “It was a pristine area, one of the few left in Europe,” Garcia said.

It will probably be at least six months before local fishermen can again catch the octopus, sole, conger and sea bream that they ship to Spanish cities, while local shellfish harvesters will lose two or three years of production, he said.

Teams of conservationists from Spain and other countries were trying to save 18 types of oil-covered seabirds, including gannets, puffins, razorbills and the European shag. Besides cleaning the birds’ feathers, volunteers swabbed nostrils and suctioned their stomach contents through tubes.

“The area where the vessel sank is really biologically important,” said Scott Burns, the U.S.-based director of the World Wildlife Fund’s marine conservation program. “Some of the seabird species don’t exist anywhere else in the world. If you compare this to the Exxon Valdez spill, this has the potential to be twice as big. The Exxon spill killed a quarter of a million birds. We are hoping that doesn’t happen here.”

Spanish soldiers and volunteers Tuesday used buckets and shovels to remove oil along 40 miles of coastline. Detergents sometimes used after oil spills are ineffective against fuel oil, whose density makes it particularly difficult to clean up, said David Kennedy, director of the U.S. Office of Response and Restoration within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fuel oil is the viscous goo left at the bottom of the barrel after refineries take gasoline and lighter components off the top. It is less toxic than crude oil because the volatile compounds have been removed, so it is less likely to poison fish and wildlife. It is generally used to power large engines.

Traditional means such as skimming it from the surface often don’t work, Kennedy said. The oil, which needs to be warmed before it can be pumped, clogs up skimming equipment or bobs just below the surface and out of reach of skimmers or chemical dispersants.

After the Prestige’s hull cracked, no port was willing to take in the stricken vessel to allow repairs or transfer of the oil to another ship. The crew was airlifted to safety last week. The tanker’s Greek captain, Apostolus Maguras, was jailed on charges of failing to cooperate with emergency rescue vessels and harming the environment.

Experts gave varying accounts of what could happen to the oil on board. Some said that the containers holding oil may have already imploded from the pressure as the ship sank, that they might crack upon hitting the ocean floor or that they could become a kind of time bomb, eventually rusting through and releasing the oil.

Some experts predicted that the ocean bottom chill will solidify the oil and keep it in place, limiting the environmental damage.

The Prestige passed its annual inspection in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in May and more extensive scrutiny in 2001, when it was hauled out of the water in Guangzhou, China, for its 25th anniversary, according to inspectors.

Spain and Portugal disputed which country had responsibility for the area where the ship sank and argued over responsibility for cleanup efforts. Spain’s Interior Ministry said the Prestige went down in an area where Portugal had responsibility for maritime rescues.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso said it was “absolutely sure and confirmed” by his country’s navy that the tanker sank in Spanish waters.

Spanish authorities have charged that port inspectors in Gibraltar should have spotted problems with the ship during its stops in the British colony.

“It was in complete compliance with our standards,” said Stewart Wade, vice president of the nonprofit American Bureau of Shipping in Houston. “What went wrong? We literally do not know.”

The Prestige was operated by Greece-based Universe Maritime Ltd. That firm said the stricken vessel had been exposed to storms by the Spanish government’s order that it be towed away from shore.

The European Union adopted tougher measures on ship inspections after the tanker Erika broke apart and sank in 1999, spilling 3 million gallons of fuel oil and damaging 250 miles of French coastline.

The rules require ports to inspect at least 25% of all ships coming in, with an emphasis on older, single-hulled vessels.

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Times staff writers Holley reported from Prague, Czech Republic, and Weiss from Los Angeles, and special correspondent Mateo Yanguas from Madrid.