MALLIPO BEACH, South Korea — Thick, smelly crude oil washed up on an 11-mile stretch of scenic coastline Saturday, blackening seagulls and threatening fish farms as South Korea’s Coast Guard struggled to contain the country’s largest oil spill.
Residents and emergency workers used buckets to try to remove the dense oil carried by strong winds and currents to the country’s western coast.
Nearly 2,200 troops, police and residents were engaged in cleanup efforts at Mallipo — one of South Korea’s best-known beaches and an important rest stop for migrating birds. Tides of dark sea water crashed ashore, while the odor reached areas a half-mile away.
The Coast Guard dispatched 62 ships and five helicopters to battle the spill. It said the area of shoreline affected by the disaster had more than doubled by Saturday evening, from four miles earlier in the day.
A Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed early Friday by a Samsung Corp. barge in rough seas and a total of 66,000 barrels of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as leaked from South Korea’s worst previous spill, in 1995.
The affected areas are home to 181 maritime farms that produce abalone, brown seaweed, littleneck clams and sea cucumbers, said Lee Seung-yop, an official with Taean county, which includes the beach. Sea farmers in the areas number about 4,000, he said.
“A lot of damage is feared to these farms, although we don’t have an estimate yet,” Lee said.
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