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BEIJING: An oil spill in northeastern China may have been about 60 times bigger than the government reported, making it among the world's worst known oil disasters, an environmental group said Friday.
Greenpeace said 60,000-90,000 tonnes of crude, or between 430,000 and 650,000 barrels, may have poured into the Yellow Sea after two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot in the port of Dalian on July 16.
That figure dwarfs official estimates of 1,500 tonnes spilled.
"It's one of the 30 largest oil spills in human history," said Richard Steiner, a marine conservationist with the University of Alaska and an adviser to Greenpeace.
"If our estimates are correct, it is certainly larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989," Steiner told a news conference.
The Exxon Valdez spilled 271,000 barrels after running aground in Prince William Sound in Alaska, affecting 1,770 kilometres (1,100 miles) of coastline.
Steiner said it could take the environment along the coastline of Liaoning province around 10 years, or even longer, to recover from the disaster.
Official estimates said the spill covered more than 435 square kilometres (170 square miles) of water, but one Chinese media report last week said the slick had spread to 946 square kilometres.
Steiner, who spent one and a half days in Dalian assessing the spill, said the lack of adequate aerial surveillance meant no one really knew the extent of the slick, even suggesting it could have reached North Korea by now.
Greenpeace admitted its estimates could be off by 50 percent -- either higher or lower -- because of the lack of reliable data from the government and oil companies.
China said Monday -- 10 days after the accident -- that the oil spill had been successfully controlled, as operations at Dalian port returned to normal.
Mayor Li Wancai said authorities had achieved a "decisive victory" in the battle to contain the spill, after mobilising 41 oil-skimming vessels, 1,200 fishing boats and oil-eating bacteria, the state-run Dalian Daily reported.
Oil sludge in the sea has mostly been cleaned and the spill has not spread to international waters, the report said.
However, Steiner said there was still oil in the water and on beaches and clean-up efforts would need to continue throughout August and even into the autumn.
Steiner said the discrepancy between the estimates provided by authorities and Greenpeace on the size of the spill was not unusual, with governments and oil companies often understating the size and severity of spills.
However, "the severity of the discrepancy (in China) is unusual," said the expert, who also has spent time in the Gulf of Mexico monitoring the BP disaster.
Greenpeace said it based its estimate on the size of the storage tank that exploded and the amount of oil recovered by thousands of fisherman deployed to help clean up the spill, many using only their bare hands.
A tank containing 90,000 tonnes of crude collapsed after the explosion, with some of the oil burning in the subsequent blaze while the rest spilled into the sea, Greenpeace said.
Oil from another five tanks was deliberately released into the ocean to contain the fire and prevent a nearby tank containing the dangerous chemical dimethylbenzene from exploding, it said.
Greenpeace said the design of the crude storage facility was flawed and had exacerbated the size of the spill.
The economic impact on the local tourism and fishing industry would be "significant", said Steiner, estimating the fishing industry would lose 50-100 million dollars this year alone.
The BP oil spill -- triggered by an April 20 explosion on a rig off the coast of Louisiana -- has resulted in three to 5.2 million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
It is likely that the disaster is the worst accidental oil spill in history.
- AFP/jm
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