The oil spill accident occurred when a Hong Kong-registered supertanker (Hebei Spirit) was rammed by a South Korean-owned barge that came unmoored from its tugboat in rough seas about 10km off Mallipo Beach at Taean Peninsula, South Korea. The 3 kinds of oil spill accidents started at 7:00 on December 7th 2007, when a tanker collided with a barge, and blackened once-scenic beach along South Korea's western coast, about 150km, southwest of Seoul. A total of 12,547kl of both heavy oil and crude oil gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea's previous worst spill, in 1995. Local residents worked with about 8,800 peoples of volunteers, civil servants, police officers and military personnel, were engaged in the effort to clear away oil on the region's shores. The seafood, oyster farms and tourism industries in the Taean region have been devastated. Oil blanketed the sand of Mallipo Beach and the rocks of Euhang Beach at Taean Peninsula, South Korea, were studied on January 5-6th 2008, just after one month of the accident. Residents wore overalls, used shovels, buckets, adsorption mats, tatters, oil fences, hand-made adsorption roller, heated water at 50-70℃ washing bath, and high-pressured nozzle to clean up the oil muck. The purification of oil on the sand beach was made so quickly within one month in sandy Mallipo Beach, whereas abundant oil drops between rocks with oil slick on the seawater surface on the rocky beach in Euhang Beach still remain. The oilcontaminated hazard map by Marine Environmental Risk Assessment Research Division, Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, Korea, reported on December 18-19th 2007. In this study, on-site surveys for checking and observing the oiling condition have started on January 5-6th 2008 one month after the spill at Mallipo Beach and Euhang Beach. The values of pH and EC in two places indicated that the bioremediation process of oil took place under neutral conditions. The analytical data of volatile aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations for 0.5l/min at two beaches indicated that the concentration of toluene is quite higher in the atmosphere than that of C typed heavy oil from the Nakhodka tanker in January 1997 in Japan. In particular, toluene concentrations were unbelievably 100-1000 times higher than those in the Nakhodka tanker accident in Japan. They succeed to cleanup beach within one month by volunteer works of manpower, and keep the clean beautiful seashore. Furthermore, we must find new defensive measure systems which are safe, low cost, easy, and sustainable by using local natural materials without manmade chemical substances. It is right time to act locally in Asian countries and think globally about environmental seawater.
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