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Spain eyes 'suspect' tankers
LA CORUNA, Spain -- An aging, single-hulled and problem-plagued tanker of the kind Spain and France have pledged to inspect at sea docked in La Coruna last week as crews battled the Prestige oil spill, officials said. Meanwhile, an environmental group warned that another suspect ship was headed to Spain. The Maltese tanker Express docked in La Coruna on Saturday with a cargo of 80,000 metric tonnes (21.3 million gallons) of crude oil after sailing from Estonia, the Port Authority told The Associated Press. The ship unloaded the oil, which had been purchased by the Spanish energy giant Repsol, on Monday and left that same day for an unknown destination, a port official said. The 20-year-old Express was last inspected in Ravenna, Italy in August and one safety deficiency was found, according to the Web site of Paris MOU, a 19-country shipping-safety organisation based in The Hague, Netherlands. It did not specify what the problem was. The ecological group WWF warned that a Maltese-flagged ship called the Byzantio, with an even more chequered record, was to leave the Estonian port of Tallin on Wednesday en route for Singapore along the same route as the ill-fated Prestige, which broke apart and sank off Spain's northwest coast on November 19. The Prestige spilled an estimated 17,000 tonnes (4.5 million gallons) of its 77,000-tonne (20 million gallon) cargo of fuel oil, contaminating hundreds of kilometres of coastline, killing wildlife and forcing a ban on fishing and seafood harvesting that has put tens of thousands of people out of work. Clean-up efforts were continuing on Wednesday. The 26-year-old, single-hulled Byzantio is carrying 53,000 metric tonnes (14 million gallons) of fuel oil, WWF said. It was held up in Dublin in August of this year after inspectors found eight deficiencies, including four in the vessel's fire-fighting equipment, Paris MOU said. It passed inspections this month in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the organisation said. There was no immediate word Wednesday from the port in Tallin on whether the Byzantio was there. News of the Express' presence and Byzantio's reported journey came a day after leaders of Spain and France announced their naval forces would start inspecting single-hull oil tankers more than 15 years old that bring hazardous cargos within the countries' 200-nautical mile economic exclusion zones. The two countries said they would expel any failing to meet safety standards. Meanwhile the Prestige's captain told a Spanish judge that as soon as the ship's hull cracked on November 13, he knew oil was spilling and it could lead to a major disaster, a newspaper said Wednesday. Tanker hull 'exploded'Skipper Apostolos Mangouras said he heard a noise so loud it was like an explosion, and that soon the ship was listing 25 or 30 degrees. "The crew was very frightened. Some of the men started crying," Mangouras said, according to El Pais, which said it obtained a transcript of his testimony before the judge. Mangouras said that right after he learned the ship's hull had split open he launched a distress call, left the bridge and went down to the deck. He said oil was gushing into the sea from ruptured tanks. He said he ordered an empty ballast tank to be filled to try to right the ship. "Everything I did was aimed at correcting the ship's list and avoiding pollution," the captain was quoted as saying. Mangouras is currently in jail and accused of disobeying authorities and harming the environment. Authorities alleged he refused for hours to let rescue crews secure cables to his stricken ship as it drifted close to shore. Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund have accused the Spanish government of minimising the extent of the disaster, mismanaging the clean-up and being late to call for international help. French Ecology Minister Roselyne Bachelot, who flew over the disaster area on Tuesday, said a three-person French submarine would arrive in the area on Sunday to check if the Prestige was still leaking oil from the sea floor 1,800 feet below. Meanwhile, as improving weather conditions allow faster clean-up operations, authorities are trying to see if more slicks are creeping beyond the Galicia region to the neighbouring northern coastal area of Asturias on the Bay of Biscay, according to AP. Regional officials said three small slicks were spotted about 30 miles from the Asturian coast. Asturias' maritime salvage agency said the slicks were from the Prestige. But central government officials in the region said the oil came from another ship that it said emptied its tanks at sea. That ship was not identified. Fishing restrictions are in place along 300 miles of Spanish coastline, affecting about 7,000 workers. About 450,000 gallons of oil has been scraped from 141 beaches, AP reported. Spain is suing the ship's owner, the Liberia-registered Mare Shipping Inc., its insurance company and the vessel's Greek captain, Apostolos Mangouras. Copyright 2002 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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