Mississippi River closure idles ships

Dozens of cargo ships, petrochemical tankers and smaller vessels stacked up near a closed stretch of the Mississippi River a day after a collision between a barge and a tanker spilled more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil into the busy shipping waterway.

The Coast Guard said reopening nearly 100 miles of river could take days, and efforts to clean up the oily sheen could take weeks. Many of the ships waited to head upriver to grain and petrochemical terminals above New Orleans, one of the world’s busiest ports.

State authorities were optimistic that environmental damage could be contained.