Up to 200 tons of diesel oil has flown into the sea after a tanker collided with a fishing boat off South Korea's southern coast, the Coast Guard said Wednesday, according to dpa. Widespread environmental damage was not expected because a relatively small amount of oil was spilled and it was expected to evaporate in a few days, a Coast Guard spokesman in the western port city of Inchon said. Sixty-six ships belonging to the Navy, Coast Guard and clean-up corporations were dispatched to the accident site off Yosu to prevent the spill from spreading. The fuel remaining in the 4,000-ton tanker Hongyang, which was involved in the collision late Tuesday, had been pumped out, the Coast Guard said. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. It occurred at a time when the weather was not especially poor. No one was hurt, but two holes were punched into the tanker's outer wall. The spill followed a much more severe one in December off South Korea's western coast when the Hebei Spirit tanker collided with a barge and spilled 12,500 tons of crude oil, causing the worst oil spill in the country's history.
