MALLIPO BEACH, South Korea (AP) – South Korea’s Coast Guard mobilized thousands of people today to clean up a disastrous oil spill polluting a swath of the country’s scenic and environmentally rich western coast.

About 100 ships, including Coast Guard, navy and private fishing boats, will help contain and clean up South Korea’s worst spill, said Coast Guard official Kim Young-hwan. About 6,000 people, including government personnel, local residents and volunteers were expected to participate, nearly triple the number on Saturday.

“This will be difficult work,” he said. “We are just in the initial stage.”

The oil started hitting beaches on Saturday, a day after a Hong Kong-registered supertanker was slammed by a South Korean-owned barge that came unmoored from its tugboat in rough seas about seven miles off Mallipo, one of South Korea’s best-known beaches. The area also includes a national maritime park.

On Saturday, tides of dark sea water crashed ashore at Mallipo beach, while the odor reached areas a half-mile away.

Nearly 2.8 million gallons of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea’s worst previous spill in 1995.

Thick, smelly waves of crude washed ashore, turning seagulls black and threatening fish farms along an 11-mile stretch of coast, defying efforts to contain it by dropping oil fences into the ocean and using chemicals to break it up.

The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the tanker had been plugged Sunday morning.

Mallipo, an important stopover for migrating birds including snipe, mallards and great crested grebes, also has an abundant fishing industry.

Choi Kyung-hwan, a 58-year-old fisherman, came to the beach Sunday to help, but despaired for the area where he has lived for 30 years.

“Mallipo is finished,” he said.

Choi, wearing a thick winter coat, said the strong odor of oil had sickened his wife.

“But I came here because I have to do something,” he said. “I don’t know when we can finish. But we have to continue. I feel dizzy.”

Cho Yoo-soon, who runs a raw fish restaurant at Mallipo beach, 95 miles southwest of Seoul, said the situation was overwhelming. She said restaurants in the area were closing, and she could not pump fresh sea water into her tanks.

“Without fresh sea water, the fish will start going bad after a week,” she said. “We can’t even walk around here because the entire beach is covered with oil.”

The affected areas include 181 maritime farms that produce abalone, brown seaweed, laver, littleneck clams and sea cucumbers, said Lee Seung-yop, an official with the Taean county government, which includes the beach. Aquatic farmers in the area number about 4,000, he said.

“A lot of damage is feared to these farms, although we don’t have an estimate yet,” Lee said Saturday.

Local raw fish restaurants such as Lee Ok-hwa’s were suffering.

“I haven’t had any customers since news of the oil spill Friday,” said Lee, who had previously served 200 tourists and others a day.

“I don’t know how to make a living,” she said. “I don’t know how to pay the rent. I believe this situation will last for at least one year.”

The central government has designated the oil spill a “disaster,” which makes it easier for regional governments to mobilize personnel, equipment and material to cope with the situation. But it stopped short of declaring the region a “disaster area,” which would make residents eligible for government financial aid.

The Coast Guard said it was unclear how many days the clean-up would take.

The accident occurred Friday morning when a barge carrying a crane en route from a construction site lost control after a wire linking it to the tugboat was cut due to high winds, waves and currents. The vessel then slammed into the Hebei Spirit tanker. Neither ship was in danger of sinking and there were no casualties.

The tanker had been at anchor and carrying about 260,000 tons – about 1.8 million barrels – of crude oil to be loaded into boats from a nearby port.

The size of the leak reported by the authorities would be about one-fourth that of the 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons, spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

The spill was also smaller than one in Pakistan in 2003 when a Greek-registered ship ran aground near Karachi, leaking some 8.2 million gallons of crude that polluted the city’s main beaches.

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Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.

AP-ES-12-08-07 2244EST