Wrecked 'Prestige' is still leaking oil, says Portugal

Portugal said yesterday that the sunken tanker Prestige was still spewing oil into the sea, despite denials from the Spanish government.

A director of the Portuguese navy's Hydrographic Institute, Captain Augusto Ezequiel, said navy aircraft had sighted a slick about two miles long and several hundred yards wide off the Galician coast. "There was leakage detected at the site. It was still coming up where the ship sank," he said.

Antonio Martins da Cruz, Portugal's Foreign Minister, declined to comment on Spain's assertion that there were no fresh leaks from the vessel, which sunk about 135 miles west of Vigo, Europe's biggest fishing port. "I myself, the Portuguese government, entirely trust the observations being made by the navy's Hydrographic Institute," he said.

Amid mounting recriminations over who was responsible for the oil spill, Spanish ministers responded with anger to criticism from SMIT, the salvage company ordered to tow the Prestige out to sea.

Jaume Matas, the Environment Minister, said: "It's a disgrace that we should have to provide explanations for these people. That's all we need. They are the ones who provoked the spill. The government has done everything possible to avert greater damage and to solve the problem."

But a spokesman for SMIT dismissed the allegation. "We wanted a place to repair the vessel and Spain made us go out to sea with a ship that was sinking and leaking oil. That was the worst of all possible solutions," he said.

On Saturday, Francisco Alvarez Cascos, the Spanish Public Works Minister, said the Greek captain of the Prestige was responsible for the tragedy, having turned off the motors and allowed the stricken vessel to drift three miles off shore. Loyola de Palacio, the EU's Transport commissioner, told Spanish radio yesterday that tighter regulations governing the seaworthiness of oil tankers encircling Europe would be brought forward from 2004 and introduced next year.

Hundreds of volunteers from all over Spain converged on the blighted coastline to help clean up but their efforts were hampered by a lack of equipment. Galicia's Socialist Party said it would lodge a censure motion against the region's veteran conservative president, Manuel Fraga, for going on a hunting trip when the black tide engulfed the coast last weekend.

A break in the storms that have pounded the Galician coast for several days allowed specialised ships to start removing oil. Strong winds have pushed the slick north-east, closer to the Spanish coast. The newspaper La Voz de Galicia said some of the oil might reach France and Britain.

Spain's Development Ministry said on Saturday that the risk of the slick reaching Portugal was diminishing. Winds from the south-west have so far kept the oil from Portugal's fishing grounds and coast, whose beaches are an attraction for the 12 million tourists visiting each year.