The crippled tanker which has been leaking oil off the northwestern coast of Spain is being towed towards Portuguese waters.
Galician government officials who flew over the Prestige, which has been adrift since a storm on Wednesday, said today they spotted a new oil slick covering three nautical miles in length, while several smaller spills were seen some 200 kilometres from the coast.
Oil has washed up along 36 kilometres of coastline across a 150-kilometre stretch to the southwest of La Coruna, the main regional city.
A breach in the shell of the ageing vessel, a single-hull tanker built in 1976, has grown wider, dumping at least 5,000 tonnes of fuel oil into the Atlantic off of one of Spain's most picturesque coasts and important fishing waters.
A powerful tugboat hired by the Prestige's Greek owners has been attempting to take the tanker, which is listing around 93 nautical miles from the Galician coast, out as far as possible.
The Japanese-built, Bahamas-registered vessel was sailing from Riga to Singapore via Gibraltar. It has been cited twice before in 1999 for violating safety standards.
However Spanish officials say they are confident that they will avoid a major environmental disaster, and crews have begun cleaning up the mess.
The slick has been washing up along the Galician shores, covering birds with oil. Ecologists say corals, sponges and fish will be damaged by the pollution. Migratory birds which stop over in the area are also at risk.
The tanker's Greek captain, Apostolos Mangouras, has been remanded in custody, accused of disobeying authorities and harming the environment.
