Oil tanker leaks 110,000 barrels of crude oil after collision off South Korea's coast

SEOUL, South Korea -- A crane-carrying vessel slammed into a Hong Kong-registered oil tanker in seas off South Korea's west coast Friday causing the tanker to leak about 110,000 barrels of crude oil, the Maritime and Fisheries Ministry said.

The collision at around 7:30 a.m. (1630 GMT Thursday) left holes in three containers aboard the 146,000-ton tanker Hebei Spirit, leading to what was believed to South Korea's largest offshore oil leak, a ministry official said on customary condition of anonymity citing office policy.

He said the leaked oil was about 15,000 tons or about 110,000 barrels - which is equivalent to 17.4 million liters (4.6 million gallons).

Another ministry official said that spills from two containers were stopped about three hours after the collision, but oil was still leaking from the third container.

The official, who also did not give his name, said the amount of the spilled oil could change.

YTN, a 24-hour cable news channel, said that the leaked oil amounted to 8,000 tons without saying where the figure came from. It showed footage of the black oil gushing out of the ship and into the ocean.

There were no human casualties in the accident. The extent of its potential damage to communities or wildlife in the area was not immediately clear, the official said.

The tanker was at anchor about 8 kilometers (5 miles) off Mallipo beach, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of Seoul, carrying about 260,000 tons of crude oil - or about 1.8 million barrels - when it was hit by another vessel that was carrying a crane, the first ministry official said.

The previously largest oil spill in South Korea happened in 1995 when about 5,035 tons of crude and fuel oil was leaked, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez supertanker released about 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in what turned into a major environmental disaster.