As experts conclude that 20,000 tonnes of very toxic fuel have spilled from the Prestige, and ecological and economic disaster threaten north-west Spain, the world holds its breath - hoping for the wind to change direction. Jane Walker reports from La Coruña
Seafarers are accustomed to relying on the whims of the weather before they can go to work. The weather this week is even more crucial for the thousands of Spanish fishermen who face ruin and the potential destruction of their industry. They can only pray and wait with bated breath for the wind and waves to keep a huge oil spill away from their fishing grounds.
The threat to their livelihood comes from the ageing Bahamian-registered tanker, the Prestige, who put out her first distress signal on November 13th when she began to leak fuel from the 77,000 tonnes in her tanks. At the time, she was sailing only 28 miles off the coast of north-west Spain in an area close to Cape Finisterre, known as Costa do Morte (Death Coast), a graveyard for hundreds of ships and sailors. She drifted to within six miles of the rich, inshore fishing grounds and shellfish beds which line the coast before being towed out to sea.
More oil continued to escape from the tanker's corroded tanks throughout her erratic five-day journey, 145 nautical miles into the Atlantic, and in her final dying agony - as she sank on Tuesday in waters two miles deep - she spewed out another, larger, spill.
Many have criticised the decision to tow her away from the shore before attempting to empty her tanks. A Dutch salvage company had asked for permission to bring the Prestige into port to pump the oil out of the tanks, but the Spanish government refused, fearing that the danger of damage to the environment would be increased.
Defence minister Federico Trillo said he was prepared to order the air force in to bomb the tanker and create a fire to burn away the fuel. Fortunately, she sank before he could take such a dramatic step.
A panel of experts meeting in La Coruña on Thursday said they believed that the amount of fuel spilled from the tanks was close to 20,000 tonnes, almost double what was originally estimated. Five thousand tonnes were lost in the original leak, and the rest as she was under tow and when she went down.
They also announced that the fuel oil was more toxic than had been previously thought, as it contains 2.58 per cent sulphur (fuel in Europe rarely exceeds 1 per cent).
Some 500 kilometres of shoreline - from El Ferrol in the north to Cape Finisterre in the south - have now been severely polluted, and the fishing exclusion zone has been increased as each new oil slick reaches new shores.
The area is one of Spain's main producers of shellfish, particularly the highly prized percebes (goose barnacles), which can sell for up to €125 a kilo and are a favourite Christmas delicacy. It is also rich in cockles, mussels, clams, prawns and spider crab, and the inshore vessels regularly bring home large catches of sea bass, bream, hake and mackerel. "We had around 100 kilos of good fat percebes in holding tanks in the estuary, but the oil got in and killed them all," sighs Nieves Charlin (28), as she mends her husband's nets in the village of Laxe. "They won't be needing these for a long time."
Fish farms have already been affected; 35,000 young turbot died as the oil seeped into their tanks. Some 4,000 people depend, directly or indirectly, on the fishing industry and many of them fear it will never recover. "Many families will be ruined," says Juan Antonio Toja, head of the fishermen's co-operative in Laxe. "They call this coast the Death Coast. It couldn't be more aptly named."
There has been criticism of the authorities for their lack of preparation for just such a catastrophe, particularly since two other major tanker disasters have occurred in the same area over the past 26 years - the Urkiola in 1976 and the Aegean Sea in 1992.
"Galicia has learned nothing from past history. We should be the ones giving lessons to other countries," complained an editorial in La Voz, a Galician newspaper. "The government had to call on Holland, France and Germany for boats with suction pumps and tanks to collect the spilled oil. If Galicia had been prepared, as ecologists have been demanding for years, the clean-up operation could have started immediately, and the damage would have been reduced."
In some places, the local fishermen used their own boats, nets and even telegraph poles to try to prevent the oil from reaching their beaches, and volunteers were sometimes forced to use plastic buckets and even their bare hands to scoop up the viscous oil which had been washed up. The three bird-cleaning centres are working round the clock and smaller field centres have been set up to treat birds on the spot.
"This is far worse than we feared, and many more birds have been brought in than in the previous disasters," says Alberto Gil of Erva-Ecologists in Action.
There were only 15 kilometres of floating barriers on hand to contain the oil and to prevent it from reaching the coastline. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says that at least 80 to 100 kilometres were needed, and complain that the ones available are of little use in the strong sea around Galicia, where waves of four metres have been reported this week.
"The seas just break over them, whipping up the oil into a consistency like bubbly mayonnaise. In Norway and Holland, they have much larger barriers which can be used far out to sea and in rough waters," says Jose Luis Garcia of WWF/Adena (the Spanish Association for the Defense of Nature).
Experts cannot agree about what will happen to some 60,000 tonnes of oil left in the tanks as the Prestige lies on the seabed. A French mini-submarine is being sent to the scene, to inspect the wreckage when the weather improves. Nearly everyone concerned agrees that the tanks will burst under the pressure of water two miles deep. Pessimists predict that the fuel will come to the surface, creating one the world's worst environmental tragedies, but the more optimistic say it will congeal and solidify in the cold water (two degrees centigrade) and remain on the seabed.
Miguel Torres, of the Spanish Oceanographic Institute was fatalistic about the threat. "It is in the hands of God. We can only pray."
He might not have long to wait for a reply to his prayers.
Portuguese coastguard planes spotted a new eight kilometre by three kilometre slick on the site of the wreck yesterday morning, and the world is watching to see which direction it will take - and hoping that a change in the wind direction will drive it northwards, away from the coast. And for once, the meteorologists have better news. The forecasts are for calmer weather, which should improve conditions for the hundreds of clean-up operators labouring in dreadful conditions.