Beach cleaners fear more oil pollution in southern Spain

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2007

ALGECIRAS, Spain (AFP) — Scores of beach cleaners who have removed some 260 tons of oil-laden detritus from a southern Spanish beach fear there is more to come, local authorities said.

The oil fuel has been leaking out of a stricken refrigerator ship, the Sierra Nava, which ran aground Monday in high winds in the bay of Algeciras.

The Andalusian regional government's environment department said that teams of more than 100 volunteers and salvage workers had so far removed 260 tons of fuel mixed with sand, earth and sea water, and experts feared that another 170 tons of diesel were still in the ship's tanks.

More than a kilometre (around a mile) of beach has been blackened by fuel seeping from the vessel after two of its four fuel tanks cracked open.

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