Ship spills oil onto southern English beach, covers seabirds

LONDON (AFP) - Oil from a stricken container ship leaked Friday onto a southern English beach and blackened seabirds in the latest mishap for a costly six-month-long salvage operation, officials said.

The MSC Napoli was deliberately run aground in January off the coast of Devon, a World Heritage Site, after it was crippled in a storm and amid fears it would sink and pollute the area with thousands of tonnes of oil.

A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesman said a "small amount of residual oil has washed up on the tide line for a stretch of about 200 metres" after leaking from the ship's tanks during complications in salvaging it.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) rescued what it said were "seven heavily oiled birds," believed to be guillemots, from the oil slick. More are expected to be hit in the coming days.

A sheen of oil could be seen spreading from the Napoli.

In January, a total of 200 tonnes of oil leaked from the vessel. Containers also spilled from the lurching ship and washed onto nearby Branscombe beach, attracting hundreds of scavengers.

On Monday, in the hope of towing her further out to sea, salvage crews floated the ship from a point on the seabed where she had rested since January off the coast east of Sidmouth.

The vessel was then re-grounded after divers found hull cracks up to three metres (yards) wide which would make it impossible to tow her.

On Friday salvage crews said they were moving the ballast around the ship to make her "sag" so the two sections would divide, making it easier to dispose of.

A spokesman for heritage protection charity the National Trust said it was "devastating" to see oil washing ashore at Branscombe Beach.

"We have asked the contractors on site to urgently deal with any oil and we are placing signs alerting the public," he said.

The 62,000-tonne Napoli was sailing from Antwerp in Belgium to South Africa when it was hit by a force eight gale 40 miles (64 kilometres) south of the Cornish coast. The 26 crew abandoned ship and were rescued by helicopter.

Some 4,000 tonnes of oil were pumped from its tanks and more than 2,000 containers were unloaded in the early part of a salvage operation that has so far cost around 50 million pounds (74 million euros, 102 million dollars.)

The RSPCA says that at least 535 birds, mainly guillemots, died from oil contamination after the Napoli was grounded.

Tim Thomas, a senior scientific officer in the RSPCA's wildlife department, said seven seabirds were rescued on Friday as he and his colleagues were "bracing ourselves to rescue more."

"We only recently released nearly 500 guillemots back into the wild after they were covered in oil in January after the Napoli was grounded.

"It is very sad that this has happened again but our staff will do everything we can to give the birds the best possible chance of survival," he added.