More than 2,000 birds are caught in an oil slick from a stricken tanker in the Baltic Sea and thousands more are threatened, a wildlife expert said Monday.
But the situation is "under control," following the leak of 2,700 tons of oil in the Storstroemmen archipelago, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Copenhagen, on Thursday, said Carsten Bryup of the Danish Navy.
He said more than 1,000 tons of oil have been scooped from the sea and some 200 tonnes more from the shores of affected islands.
The navy is using about 15 ships, including a German and a Swedish vessel, in the operation, Bryup said.
He said the Danish firm Maersk Broker on Monday began cleaning the damaged section of the Baltic Carrier, and the holds would be emptied Tuesday before the tanker is towed to a destination that is yet to be decided.
The slick seeped out of the 35,000 ton Baltic Carrier tanker after it was holed in a collision with the 34,000 tonne "Tean," a bulk carrier bringing sugar from Cuba to Latvia via the German port of Rostock.
Finn Jensen, a wildlife expert on the island of Falster told AFP more than 2,000 birds have now been caught in the slick.
"As many, if not more risk the same fate," along the worst affected islands of Bogoe, Falster and Moen, he said.
Swans, ducks, geese, moorhens and seagulls are among the victims. But he said the large bird sanctuary between the islands of Moen and Seeland has been spared, and "we do not think it will be affected."
Around 400 troops, experts and volunteers as well as members of the environmental group Greenpeace have taken part in the cleanup operation along more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) of polluted shoreline, particularly in Bogoe, known as Denmark's "green island."
The head of the Danish merchant navy in a report published Saturday blamed technical and human errors for the collision – COPENHAGEN (AFP)
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