Streams of oil from a sunken tanker soiled the south-western coast of France today, frustrating efforts by clean-up crews to contain the spreading pollution.
Even as workers in white protective suits scooped up balls of oil with gloved hands, larger black clumps washed ashore.
Local authorities appealed for extra help, and officials said some lumps measured 18 inches across.
"It's no longer little balls, but plates" of oil, said Colonel Patrick Toufflet, a cleanup commander in the Landes region, south of Bordeaux, which today mobilised about 100 people, including soldiers and fire officers.
Laboratory tests have traced oil from the Landes' beaches back to the Prestige, the ageing tanker which sank off north-western Spain on November 19th.
The vessel has been disgorging thousands of tons of gluey oil which have blackened vast swaths of the Spanish coast.
Patches of oil began washing up along hundreds of miles of French beaches this week.
Authorities in the Gironde region, north of the Landes, said today that tests on oil found there confirmed that it, too, was from the Prestige.
"The pollution ... is on average twice what it was" yesterday, Mr Paul Buchoux, a Gironde official, said today.
The worsening mess came a day after President Jacques Chirac said France would relentlessly pursue ship owners and crews who tried to side-step maritime rules.
"France and Europe will not allow shady businessman, rascals of the sea, to cynically profit from the lack of transparency," Mr Chirac said.
AP