SALVAGE experts aboard a crippled super tanker were last night in a race against time to avoid a pollution catastrophe.
Plans were underway to off load the huge remaining cargo of 136,000 tonnes of crude oil from the Liberian registered Sea Empress 24 hours after it ran on to rocks near Milford Haven, west Vales.
A massive clean up operation is taking place to combat a five mile long oil slick further down the Bristol Channel part of the estimated 6,000 tonnes of cargo which poured into the sea after the accident on Thursday night.
A few hundred tonnes of oil has come ashore on beaches, headlands and nature areas along the south Pembrokeshire coast, one of the most important wildlife habitats in Britain.
The environmentally protected area is home to up to half a million sea birds as well as colonies of grey seals.
In an urgent response to the threat, the Department of Transport's Marine Pollution Control Unit sent seven aircraft fitted with dispersant spray equipment.
Mr Kevin Colcomb, one of the pollution unit's coordinators, said last night that about 200 tonnes of oil had come ashore on local beaches in the Milford Haven estuary. Gangs of council workmen, contractors and Texeco oil company employees were deployed on the clean up task.
Protective booms were placed in front of vulnerable marshlands in the estuary after more oil was sighted.