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Prestige oil fear for Portugal
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Leaked oil from the wreck of the Prestige is suspected of having washed up on the Portugal's shore. It proven, it would make Portugal the third country to be affected by the oil tanker's spillage, after Spain and France. Clumps of oil polluted hundreds of metres of the Apulia beach near the fishing port of Esposende, near the Spanish border and 350 kilometres north of Lisbon, Portuguese media reported on Monday. Portuguese authorities took samples of the oil and results were due later on Tuesday, Portuguese news media said, citing officials. If confirmed to be from the Prestige, Portugal will follow Spain, which has suffered major pollution, and France, which has seen the sludge wash up on its coast since New Year's Day, halting the sales of oysters harvested there. Portugal has been on alert since the Prestige first cracked its hull on November 13 off Spain's northwest coast -- just north of Portugal. It sank amid heavy weather six days later. Throughout the crisis, Portuguese authorities have monitored the spill. Police say about 50,000 people marched in the northwest Spanish city of Vigo on Monday, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It was the latest in a series of large protests around Spain organised under the banner of "Never Again," a phrase so popular that even the prime minister has adopted it, pledging that his embattled conservative government would not permit another oil spill from an ageing, single-hulled tanker like the Prestige. The initial damage from the spill occurred on Spain's northwest coast, near Vigo, blackening hundreds of beaches and crippling the lucrative fishing industry that provides mussels and clams. The damage later swept around to Spain's northern coast and has, since New Year's Day, hit the French coast. The sunken tanker is about 210 kilometres (130 miles) off the coast, resting on the ocean floor, and leaking from numerous cracks. Experts say it may be leaking up to 1,000 tons of oil each week. Efforts to seal the cracks, using a special French mini-submarine, have not stopped all the leaking, Spanish officials said. The Prestige was carrying a cargo of 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, and since then, has spilled at least 25 percent of the load, experts say.
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