Text 4. Crippled fuel oil tanker sinks
The Prestige oil slick must be considered one of the most damaging in the history of maritime transport, and one of the most complex. It is regarded to be the worst since the Exxon Valdez disaster that hit Alaska in 1989.
"Environmental disaster zone", "black tide", "time-bomb under the ocean" – these were just a few of the headlines that describe the scale of the environmental impact of the oil spill from the Prestige oil tanker which sank off the north-west coast of Spain in November 2002. The sinking of the Prestige was the latest in a series of oil tanker disasters in European waters in recent years.
I. Read the text.
Make sure you understand the words below:
crippled |
damaged |
primary |
basic |
seepage |
leakage |
to spring a leak |
to develop a leak |
intact |
undamaged |
to drag out |
to tow out |
Work in groups of two. The text below is divided into two parts, A and B. Each student has to read one part. Exchange the information.
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
A. A crippled tanker has sunk 130 miles off Spain's northwest coast. Spanish authorities rushed to protect the coastline in a region where fishing is the primary industry.
The Bahamian-flagged tanker Prestige broke in half on Tuesday, its stern sinking quickly with little seepage of fuel from its tanks. Its bow stayed afloat for several hours but sank later in the day.
The Prestige ran into trouble six days ago in heavy seas and gale-force winds off Cape Finisterre on the Galicia coast. Its original cargo was 22.6 million gallons, but it spilled an estimated 1.5 million gallons when it sprang a leak and another 1.5 million gallons as it broke up.
The stern section, which contained about 7 million gallons tons of oil, sank with its tanks intact, said an official with the Dutch firm that had been attempting to move the ship away from the Spanish coast.
Spain's northwest coast has suffered several tanker accidents in recent years. The area is sometimes called "the coast of death" because of the many shipwrecks there.
B. The 243-meter tanker began leaking in heavy seas last Wednesday en route to Gibraltar from the Latvian port of Riga.
A fuel slick 70 miles long and 5 miles wide was moving onto the Spanish coast. Spanish government teams were stringing barriers to protect the inlets near the port of La Coruna.
The tanker had already leaked oil into the rich fishing grounds off the coast, and regional authorities temporarily banned fishing in an area famous for its shellfish, octopus1 and crabs.
The ship was dragged out to sea after both Spain and Portugal barred salvagers from towing the Prestige into any of their ports to protect their fishing and tourism industries.
On Monday two Spanish tugboats tried to pull the tanker as far away from the coast as possible.
The tanker's Greek captain was in custody after five hours of questioning Sunday by a judge in La Coruna. Maritime authorities said he failed to cooperate with rescue crews after issuing a distress call.
For hours, as the Prestige drifted dangerously close to shore, he refused to let tugboats secure cables to the ship.
Spain said it would insist on bringing forward the date to ban from European waters single-hulled tankers like the Prestige and insist on double-hulled vessels.