Disaster off the Brittany Coast

History's biggest oil spill despoils the French shoreline

Like a grotesque, hook-shaped inkblot, the oil spread menacingly across the water. Along a single stretch of Brittany beach, 25 species of dead fish were found. Vast beds of seaweed, which are harvested to make Pharmaceuticals and fertilizer, were destroyed. Thousands of oil-tarred birds lay dead or dying. The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey were threatened, as were the sands around the spectacular monastery at Mont-St.-Michel. Driven by gale winds, the oil may despoil more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) of France's ruggedly beautiful Brittany coast, and imperil the Normandy beaches farther to the east as well. By any measure, the spill was the biggest of all time and perhaps the most devastating. At week's end it appeared that most of the Amoco Cadiz's 220,000 tons of crude oil--twice the amount released by the infamous Torrey Canyon eleven years ago--would ooze from the American-owned supertanker, which lay broken in two after going aground off the storm-tossed Brittany peninsula.

In the face of this major ecological disaster, French officials were helpless. Winds howled so furiously for most of the week that plastic barricades failed to contain the drifting slicks. Emergency crews were reluctant to use detergents to break up the oil because they feared long-term toxic effects on marine life. Instead, fishermen worked day and night to move valuable oysters and scallops to other waters or to rush them to market.

Understandably outraged, the French opened a full-scale investigation into the calamity, which was apparently caused by the failure of the tanker's steering gear. Possibly because of a dispute over the towing price, the ship's captain--who was charged with negligent polluting by the French--may have delayed enlisting the help of a nearby tug or sending off a distress signal. When a rescue was finally attempted, the sea and winds were so heavy that even the powerful tug could not pull the disabled giant back into the shipping lanes. One immediate result of the spill: a new determination by the French to keep closer tab on the increasingly heavy flow of oil traffic off their shores.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.