Mallipo Beach, South Korea - Thousands of people mobilized by South Korea's Coast Guard used shovels and buckets Sunday to clean up a disastrous oil spill polluting a swathe of the country's scenic and environmentally rich western coast.
About 100 ships, including Coast Guard, navy and private fishing boats, were also used to help contain and clean up South Korea's worst spill, said Coast Guard official Kim Young-hwan.
A total of 7,500 police, military, civil servants and volunteers struggled to remove the oil that started hitting beaches Saturday, a day after a Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed by a South Korean-owned barge that came unmoored from its tugboat in rough seas off Mallipo beach.
Nearly 2.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled in the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea's worst previous spill in 1995.
The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the tanker had been plugged Sunday morning. They were unsure how long clean up would take. The central government has designated the oil spill a "disaster," making it easier for regional governments to mobilize personnel, equipment and material.
The size of the leak reported by the authorities would be about one-fourth of the 11 million gallons spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
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