The Oil Spill...

If you've been watching the news lately, you know that there was an oil spill off the west coast of Korea last week. I live much further south than where the spill was....

SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean government Tuesday declared its western coast polluted by the country's worst-ever oil leakage as special disaster zone and decided to provide direct subsidies to this area.

The central government will provide South Chungcheong province with an initial fund of 6.9 billion won (7.47 million U.S. dollars) to help the region, said Park Myung-jae, minister of Government Administration and Home Affairs.

The decision came four days after about 10.5 trillion liters of crude oil leaked from a 146,000-ton oil tanker that was hit by a crane-carrying barge on last Friday 6 mile off the coast of Taean county. The oil spill was the largest in the case in South Korea's history.

The South Korean government has mobilized thousands of troops, police officers and local residents to contain the spread of the floating oil and clean up the leaked oil at the beach.

However, the clean-up was not effective due to high waves, strong winds and lack of equipment necessary to remove the oil, local officials was quoted by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency as saying.

Local media said thousands of fish farms off Taean were polluted or in danger of being damaged by the oil spill. The seashore in that area, which are famous tourist resorts, are also heavily polluted by the oil.

There is still no government report on the damage of the accident.

Nicola is missioning around to get us up there on Saturday and Sunday to help out with the clean-up. At some point this week, I'm going to go invest in some rubber boots, fishermen's pants and the like so that I can be a part of the clean up.... I'll let you know how it goes.