S'pore battles major oil spill

S'pore battles major oil spill

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Singapore battled yesterday to keep one of Southeast Asia's worst-ever oil spills from spreading to neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia.

The government has arrested the captains of the two ships involved in the Wednesday night collision which sent 25,000 tons of fuel oil gushing into the busy Singapore Strait.

The collision took place about seven nautical miles from Singapore's main island and some 50 vessels, including oil skimmers from Japan, have joined the clean-up operation.

No slicks have hit Singapore proper, but they have washed ashore on smaller islands and efforts were under way to keep them from seriously affecting Malaysia and Indonesia.

Chen Tze Penn, director-general of Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority, said late Monday that those two countries were at risk.