Major oil spill continues to pollute French beaches. This is oil from the tanker Erika , an old, single-hulled tanker, registered in Malta, manned by an Indian crew, and chartered to the largest French oil company, TotalFina. The Erika broke in two in a storm off the coast of France on December 12, 1999. There are immediate fears of a major oil spill. The French are overwhelmed by the oil.
More oil comes on shore after tremendous storms.
The scale of the spill becomes clearer. Seabirds are affected as far away as Britain. January 7, 2000. A toxic algal bloom killed California sealions in 1998. Press release about a new paper published in Nature.