Prestige Oil Spill

History

• The Prestige, an oil tanker, was sinking in 2002 caused a large oil spill.

• The spill polluted thousands of kilometres of coastline and more than one thousand beaches on the Spanish and French coast.

• The Prestige was carrying more than 77,000 tons of oil cargo from Latvia to Gibraltar.

• one of its twelve tanks burst during a storm off Galicia, in north western Spain.

• The captain requested that the ship be led toward a port of refuge where it could transfer its cargo to another tanker.

• Instead, Spanish authorities used a Dutch salvage ship to tow the Prestige out to sea, in order to protect ecologically-sensitive coasts.

• However, pressure from local authorities forced the captain to steer the embattled ship away from the coast and head northwest.

• Reportedly after pressure from the French government, the vessel was once again forced to change its course and head southwards into Portuguese waters in order to avoid endangering France's southern coast.

• Fearing for its own shore, the Portuguese authorities promptly ordered its navy to intercept the ailing vessel and prevent it from approaching further.

Galicia or Galiza is an autonomous community of Spain, made up of the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra. It is located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. It borders Portugal to the south, the Spanish regions of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west.

19 November 2002

• At around 8:00 AM , the ship split in half, and sank completely that same afternoon releasing over 20 million gallons of oil into the sea.

• After the sinking, the wreck continued leaking oil. It leaked approximately 125 tons of oil a day affected the Atlantic coast from Vigo in Spain to Brest in France .

• The Nautilus submarine filled in many of the cracks, but the ship continues to leak.

• At that time, the oil tanker was to be about 250 kilometers from Spanish Coast.

• It is estimated that 37,000 tons of fuel oil remain in the tanker.

• The vessel will continue to leak fuel for years, unless the oil was removed from the vessel.

• The Greek captain Apostolos Mangouras was taken into custody, accused of not co-operating with salvage crews and of harming the environment.

• There is 64,000 tons of fuel oil were spilled in the incident.

• The affected area is not only a very important ecological region, supporting coral reefs and many species of sharks and birds, but it also supports the crucial fishing industry.