page_title: Sea Empress oil spill
section_title: Clean-up
hierarchical_section_title: Sea Empress oil spill / Clean-up
caption_attribution_description: English: nr Angle Bay - Cleanup operation still ongoing 1 year after oilspill. Cleaning up difficult places Angle Bay and some houses of Angle are visible in the background. Deutsch: Bei Angle Bay - Reinigungsarbeiten über ein Jahr nach dem Tankerunglück an schwierig erreichbaren Buchten. Angle Bay und einige Häuser von Angle, Pembrokeshire im Hintergrund zu sehen
context_page_description: The Sea Empress oil spill occurred at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales on 15 February 1996. The Sea Empress was en route to the Texaco oil refinery near Pembroke when she became grounded on mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. Over the course of a week, she spilt 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas. It was Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time.
  Sailing against the outgoing tide and in calm conditions, at 20:07 GMT the ship was pushed off course by the current and became grounded after hitting rocks in the middle of the channel. The collision punctured her starboard hull causing oil to pour out into the sea. Tugs from Milford Haven Port Authority were sent to the scene and attempted to pull the vessel free and re-float her. During the initial rescue attempts, she detached several times from the tugs and grounded repeatedly – each time slicing open new sections of her hull and releasing more oil.
context_section_description: A large clean-up operation began as soon as the Sea Empress started spilling oil. Volunteers and paid hands alike, came together to restore the beautiful beaches of Pembrokeshire.  In the immediate days and weeks that followed, one thousand people worked around the clock to rescue oiled birds and remove oil from beaches using suction tankers, pressure washers and oil-absorbing scrubbers. The main clean-up operation lasted several weeks and continued on a reduced scale for over a year.
caption: Cleanup in difficult places still ongoing over a year later near Angle Bay
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