Oil spill is New Zealand's 'worst maritime disaster'

Catherine Taylor, Director of Maritime New Zealand: "We are expecting oil on the beaches"

The oil leaking from a stranded cargo ship off New Zealand has become the country's worst maritime environmental disaster, the government has said.

Officials say 130-150 tonnes of oil may have leaked from the vessel, as much as 10 times previous estimates.
The container ship, the 775ft (236m) Rena, ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef off the port of Tauranga on Wednesday.
As workers scoop oil from beaches, bad weather has put a temporary halt to operations to pump oil off the vessel.
"I'd like to acknowledge this event has come to a stage where it is New Zealand's most significant maritime environmental disaster," Environment Minister Nick Smith told a news briefing in Tauranga.
"It is my view that the tragic events we are seeing unfolding were absolutely inevitable from the point that the Rena ran onto the reef in the early hours of Wednesday morning," he said.
'Main tank breached' Earlier, Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) said there was "a significant amount of oil leaking from the vessel".
An MNZ spokesman told the New Zealand Herald that oil was leaking from a main tank on the Rena and moving south-west towards Mt Maunganui, next to the port of Tauranga, on New Zealand's North Island.
"One of the main tanks has been breached. It is very significant in the scheme of things," the spokesman said.

The MNZ statement said the ship was intact but was moving around in the heavy seas.

There had been fears the bad weather might break up the ship, leaking all of the 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil the ship is believed to be carrying and spilling its containers into the sea.
The remaining ship's crew have been taken off the Rena. The vessel called a mayday, officials said as a precaution, to speed up the crew's removal.
The ship was now in a more stable position than it had been, MNZ said, listing from 3-6 degrees instead of the previous 11 degrees as rock underneath the Rena's bow had been ground down.
Clumps of heavy oil have been washing up on the beaches of Mt Maunganui and the nearby community of Papamoa.
MNZ said oil was expected to enter Tauranga port and reach beaches south to Maketu.
MNZ head Catherine Taylor said containing the oil would be difficult, given the Rena's position on a reef and the weather battering the region.
Swells of up to four metres are making the use of dispersants on the oil difficult.
Once the weather has calmed enough to resume transferring the oil off the ship, the containers will be removed and then the Rena can be moved off the reef.
A tanker offloading the oil had to return to port for minor repairs. Strong seas meant the tanker would not have been able to resume operations anyway, officials said.
Officials have closed the affected beaches and residents close to vulnerable coastlines have been told to stay away from the shore and not touch the heavy globs of oil.
About 200 people are involved in the salvage operation, while 300 military personnel are on stand-by to clean up beaches.
MNZ head Catherine Taylor told the BBC it would take several weeks to clean up the shoreline.
The area's long, sandy beaches are popular with tourists and surfers. Conservationists have warned the oil spill poses a huge threat to the region's abundant wildlife.
"There are thousands of gannets and petrels and shearwaters in the area and hundreds of blue penguins... And we've got dotterels and oyster catchers nesting on the sandy beaches," WWF spokesman Bob Zuur told the BBC.
"This oil represents potentially a huge tragedy for the wildlife of the area."
The owners of the ship, Greece-based Costamare Inc, have not given an explanation for the grounding, but said they were "co-operating fully with local authorities" to minimise any damage.