1. The Oil Tanker

• On November 13th the Bahamian registered Prestige ran into trouble during a storm 21 miles off cape Finisterre and began to spill its cargo of 77,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
• The Spanish maritime authorities ordered that the vessel should be towed off the coast out to sea. First it sailed north-west away from Galicia, but then it turned south and sailed all along the coast until it split in half and sank about 140 miles off the shore on November 19th. It spilled an estimated 17,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
• The salvage company that tried to rescue the tanker, Smit Salvage, has argued that the ship and most of its 77,000-ton cargo of fuel oil could have been saved if it had been brought into calmer waters. When the tanker went down, the company was taking it south in the hope of reaching an African port where it could attempt a transfer of the cargo.
• The Prestige now lies 11,800 feet under the ocean leaking an estimated 125 tonnes of oil a day. A French research submarine, the Nautile, is trying to seal the 14 cracks in its hull; if it fails, leaking could continue for up to three years.

The stricken tanker

The deadly wake

The tanker sinks

Oil leaks out of the sunken tanker