Thousands of tons of heavy fuel remain in the bow and stern
sections of the Prestige, the oil tanker that split in half off
the northwestern coast of Spain on November 19, 2002. It sank to
the seabed, more than 3,500 meters deep in the Atlantic Ocean
some 200 kilometers from Galicia. Tons of toxic fuel have oozed
from 20 cracks in the hulls as semisolid black strings, like
toothpaste being squeezed from a tube, and have drifted toward
the sea surface. It has become Spain's worst ecological disaster
ever, halting coastal fishing and polluting beaches. The ship
has already spilled at least 30,000 tons of oil, and researchers
aren't sure when the seepage will stop. At first, scientists
thought that the fuel would freeze: oil remains fluid to six
degrees Celsius, and the deep water around the wreck is at 2.75
degrees C. Experts guess that the Prestige left port from
Ventspils, Latvia, in the Baltic Sea with 77,000 tons at 50
degrees C. But no one knows what the oil temperature is now.
According to Malcolm L. Spau