The small fishing village of Laxe depends almost completely on the fishing industry. After the 77,000 tonne tanker Prestige began to lose its cargo of heavy fuel oil, fishing was banned and thousands are facing ruin.
Yesterday morning the 60 small boats which make up its fleet were confined to port, groups of anxious men stood around and the usually busy auction shed, where hake, sea bream, jurel, octopus and crab are sold every month, was deserted.
"At least 150 families in this village depend on fishing directly or indirectly, whether going to sea, repairing boats and nets or selling the catches. Many of them will be ruined," said Mr Juan Antonio Toja, the president of the local fishermen's co-operative.
The only activity yesterday came as hundreds of seagulls screamed and fought over a dozen boxes of rotten fish which had been landed hours after the ban but had failed the health checks.
Laxe is just one of hundreds of Galician communities where fishing forms the major part of the local economy. Ten km along the coast, the scene in Malpica village was the same, dozens of fishermen waited to see what they could do. "More than 500 men from this town are out of work and we don't know when we will be able to go out to sea again," said Mr José Marin.
A week after the Prestige got into difficulties off the coast of north-west Spain and 24 hours after it sank, about 10,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil have leaked from its tanks. The oil slick has expanded steadily to cover an area of 289 km by 35 km with a thick layer of glutinous black oil. There are reports of a new slick.
Three Laxe boat-owners who decided to sail out beyond the official prohibited area late on Tuesday night found themselves surrounded by oil which had moved with the tide.
"It was terrifying and eerie. The sea suddenly turned into a thick black soup, with the moon shining on the surface. When we pulled up our nets they were so coated with fuel that they can never be used again and most of the fish were dead," said Mr Manuel Toja, who shares a 19-metre boat with his younger brother.
Because of licensing legislation, their boat does not qualify them for the €30 handout for fishermen and they face ruin. "Unless things change very soon, my daughter will not get any presents this Christmas," he says.
Although most of the fishermen have been promised subsidies of €30 a day, with an additional payment to boat-owners, few of them can live on that. "How are we expected to feed our families, pay our social security contributions, pay off the bank loans on the boat, the mortgage on our homes, the gas and the electricity?" asks Ms Tamara Charlin, who was storing nets with her sister Nieves for the boat in which their husbands and three brothers each have a share.
" We were just getting into the busiest season of the year and we were depending on it for Christmas," she said. They have lost all the percebes - goose barnacles worth hundreds of euros a kilo - being kept in holding tanks to sell for the Christmas market.
The environment minister, Mr Jaume Matas, yesterday confirmed that more than 300 km of coastline - which houses some of Spain's richest inshore fishing and shellfish beds and 90 tourist beaches - are affected and there is a real fear that the gale force winds last night would cause even more damage.
The navy has been called out and volunteers have arrived from many countries to help local workers in the clean-up operation. On the 1 km-long sandy beach at Razo, the golden sand had been turned a dirty grey; a dead dolphin lay on the shore with dozens of gulls. Twenty km along the coast, the famous tourist beach at Seirouga was even worse. At high tide level the oil was ankle deep and the sand had become so impregnated it was like walking on jelly.
Pessimists believe the oil will rise to the surface possibly causing one of the world's greatest ecological disasters, while optimists say the weight of the heavy fuel and cold water temperatures (about 2º) will cause it to congeal and remain on the sea bed. But whatever happens over the coming days, the situation is already critical.