Thousands protest over oil spill disaster
More than 100,000 people marched today to protest at Spain’s worst ecological disaster.
A sea of flags bearing the baby-blue and white colours of the northwest Galicia region fluttered in the streets of Madrid in a procession led by a float with a mock-up of the oil tanker Prestige, which broke in two and sank in November.
The accident fouled hundreds of beaches and knocked thousands of sea-dependent people out of work. Clean-up costs are estimated to be at least a billion dollars and much of the oil remains inside the ship under nearly 2.5 miles of Atlantic ocean, posing a technological conundrum over how to remove it.
The Interior Ministry estimated attendance at about 100,000 while organisers - a coalition of ecological, labour and social groups called Nunca Mais, or Never Again – told the national news agency Efe it was over a million.
Protesters painted their faces with black tears and carried banners and posters calling Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his ministers everything from arrogant to absent.
Bagpipe music wailed, a reflection of the Celtic roots of Spain’s misty, green northwest corner. Other protesters banged drums and blew whistles.
After bleeding petroleum for six days just off the coast, the Prestige broke in two and sank on November 19, and the government now estimates it spilled about half of its cargo of 20.5 million gallons of toxic, viscous fuel oil.
It fouled more than 700 beaches in Galicia and other northern regions. Oil has drifted as far as southwest France and to Portugal.
The Spanish government has been blamed for downplaying the extent of the disaster, failing to equip and coordinate clean-up operations and being slow or misleading as it shared information.
Hundreds of university scientists have signed a manifesto saying the government erred critically at the outset.
They said the whole mess might have been avoided if the government had towed the leaking ship into port or to calm waters to remove the oil, rather than rush to get it as far out to sea as possible, as quickly as possible.
