'I Think We Are Finished': Oil Clean-Up in South Korea Virtually Impossible

By Sunday (today), it became clear to local residents that they were battling an environmental disaster. The tidal flats near the county of Taean, about 150 kilometers southwest of Seoul, are home to rich wildlife, oyster and fish farms, and a national park. Each year, millions of tourists flock there to bathe in the summer or watch winter migrating birds stopping to feed in the muddy flats teeming with clams.

“Everyone is out there fighting. There is so much oil we have to use buckets to scoop it up,” Moon Hong Chol, a resident in Wonbuk village in Taean, said by telephone. “The dark brown slime is all over our oyster and abalone and clam beds. Tourists are canceling resort reservations. I think we are finished.”

Oil Spill South of Seoul, South Korea Stinks

About 70 boats and six helicopters were sent...to help the clean-up as hundreds of soldiers, coast guards, police and local residents used buckets to remove dense crude oil from Mallipo, one of South Korea's best-known and most popular beaches.

Residents said the oil could be smelt more than half a mile inland, as the slick contaminated four miles of shoreline.

"This is an enormous accident … the smell is so strong that it causes a headache," said Lee Hee-yol, a village leader at Mallipo. "We've asked the government to declare this region as a disaster zone."

The area, about 95 miles south-west of the capital, Seoul, is also the site of farms that produce abalone, seaweed, clams and sea cucumbers and the spill is likely to affect at least 4,000 fishermen. It is also home to a national maritime park and is an important sanctuary for migrating birds, including snipe, mallards and great crested grebes.