Thousands march in Spanish oil slick protest
Date: 17-Dec-02
Country: SPAIN
Police estimated that about 12,000 people took part in the demonstration, which was the largest outside the stricken region of Galicia in northwestern Spain, where hundreds of kilometres of beaches have been tarred by oil from the tanker Prestige.
Local media reports said some protesters carried banners reading: "Gentlemen, You Are Fired" and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is leading clean-up efforts.
Since it began spewing toxic fuel oil during a storm off the Galician coast on November 13, then six days later broke in two and sank, the Prestige has been a major political headache for Aznar's government.
The opposition Socialist party and local media have questioned Aznar's decision to send the tanker back out to the stormy Atlantic, rather than allow it into a harbour where spilling oil could be contained before the tanker broke up.
In early December, tens of thousands of angry demonstrators packed Galicia's capital of Santiago de Compostela to protest at the government's failure to protect the region's pristine coastline and rich fisheries.
Experts estimate the 26-year-old, single-hulled vessel took 56,000 tonnes of its total 77,000 tonnes of fuel oil to the ocean floor, where it is leaking 120 to 125 tonnes of the cargo each day. A submarine crew patched one of more than a dozen leaks on Friday.
Visiting Galicia on Saturday for the first time since the disaster struck, Aznar apologised for a shortage of resources to contain and remove the foul-smelling toxic sludge.
But he also defended his government's decision to order the ailing ship away from shelter in a Spanish harbour.
Several hundred angry protesters, some waving tar-stained images of Aznar daubed with swastikas, earlier on Saturday scuffled with police in the regional capital of La Coruna.