Oil From Tanker Hits French Beaches
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BREST, France — Oil that spilled from a tanker that broke up began washing up on France’s Atlantic coastline Friday, days before cleanup teams had expected it to contaminate the shores.
Experts had been tracking the spill for more than 10 days and were expecting the viscous, heavy oil to wash ashore Sunday.
But the gummy patches of oil hit land Friday--and in an area anti-pollution teams had not expected it: on the shore of the island of Belle Ile off the Brittany coast.
The Maltese-registered tanker had been chartered by the Franco-Belgian oil group TotalFina. The ship broke in two Dec. 12, sinking off the coast of Brittany and pouring 3 million gallons of oil into the sea.
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