Oil from damaged supertanker blackens shore in S. Korea's largest oil spill

~ A total of 66,000 barrels of crude gushed into the ocean and is washing onto beaches.

MALLIPO BEACH, South Korea -- Thick, smelly crude oil washed up on an 11-mile stretch of scenic coastline Saturday, blackening seagulls and threatening fish farms as South Korea's Coast Guard struggled to contain the country's largest oil spill.

Residents and emergency workers used buckets to try to remove the dense oil carried by strong winds and currents to the country's western coast.

Nearly 2,200 troops, police and residents were engaged in cleanup efforts at Mallipo, one of South Korea's best-known beaches and an important rest stop for migrating birds. Tides of dark sea water crashed ashore, while the odor reached areas a half-mile away.

The Coast Guard dispatched 62 ships and five helicopters to battle the spill. It said the area of shoreline affected by the disaster had more than doubled by Saturday evening, from four miles earlier in the day.

A Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed early Friday by a Samsung Corp. barge in rough seas and a total of 66,000 barrels of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as leaked from South Korea's worst previous spill in 1995.

Cho Yoo-soon, who runs a raw fish restaurant at Mallipo beach, 95 miles southwest of Seoul, said the situation was overwhelming. She said restaurants in the area were closing, and she could not pump fresh sea water into her tanks.

"Without fresh sea water the fish will start going bad after a week," she said.

The affected areas are home to 181 maritime farms that produce abalone, brown seaweed, littleneck clams and sea cucumbers, said Lee Seung-yop, an official with Taean county, which includes the beach. Sea farmers in the areas number about 4,000, he said.

"A lot of damage is feared to these farms, although we don't have an estimate yet," Lee said.

The Coast Guard said it was unclear how many days the cleanup operation would take.

"We're doing our best to remove the contamination as quickly as possible, but it will take some time to clean up the shore because it needs to be done by hand," said Kim Woon-tae, a Coast Guard official stationed in the region.

"It's a difficult operation because weather is not good," Kim said. "We're focusing our efforts on preventing more oil from reaching the coast."

Kim said oil was still trickling out of a hole on the punctured tanker, but it would soon be sealed completely. The Coast Guard headquarters had said Friday that all three holes in the tanker were plugged. Kim did not explain the apparent discrepancy.

"We've asked the government to declare this region a disaster zone," said Lee Hee-yol, a village leader at Mallipo.

Kim Kyung-chul, an official at the National Emergency Management Agency, said such a declaration -- which would make residents eligible for government financial aid -- was not yet being considered.

The government has so far designated the oil spill a "disaster," he said, which enables regional governments in the affected areas to mobilize personnel and equipment.

The size of the leak reported by the authorities is about one-fourth that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that leaked 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.