SPAIN Rias Baixas, Ria de Arousa (River Arousa), Near O Grove -- 15/12/2002 -- Aerial view of a small island near O Grove on the Galician coast. Thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel oil

SPAIN Rias Baixas, Ria de Arousa (River Arousa), Near O Grove -- 15/12/2002 -- Aerial view of a small island near O Grove on the Galician coast. Thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel oil has contaminated large swathes of the north-western coast of Spain after the tanker Prestige sank in late November 2002. Pollution from the sunken tanker is very localised and can be difficult to spot from the air. The ship was carrying around 57,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and while some has been extracted from the wreck, a lot of the oil has leaked into the sea causing a ecological disaster of unknown proportions along much of the southern Atlantic coast of Europe. The cost of the disaster is estimated at over 20 billion Euros. Thousands of volunteers and military personnel are involved in the clean-up operation which could last for six months