Response
The South Korean government declared a state of disaster in the region. The cost of cleanup has been estimated at 300 billion South Korean won (US$330 million). The cleanup involved 13 helicopters, 17 airplanes and 327 vessels. It has also been estimated the cleanup will take at least two months. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers and celebrities including popular Korean actress Park Jin Hee helped to clean up the beaches in the campaign. As of 4 January 2008, the Navy had deployed 229 vessels and some 22,000 military personnel to help clean up the spill, in addition to civilian aid.
On 10 January 2008, the number of volunteers topped the 1-million mark to reach 1,037,000 people, 33 days after the accident occurred on 7 December, according to the South Chungcheong provincial government. The Taean office for emergency operations reported that ordinary civilians took up the largest portion of volunteers with 580,000, followed by local residents with 186,700, soldiers and policemen with 127,000, and public officials with 57,143. The emergency office said an average of 20,000 volunteers took part in the operation during weekdays and 3,000 over the weekends.
By January 2008, approximately 4,153 tons of crude oil spilled had been collected by utilizing some 268,710 kilograms of oil absorbents and other cleanup devices. Financial contributions combined to 27.76 billion South Korean won (about 20 million euro) in donations, as well as food and clothing. The Taean emergency center said more than seven billion won in donations have come from about 4,200 organizations and individuals.
Internationally, the Regional Oil Spill Contingency Plan under the Northwest Pacific Action Plan(NOWPAP) has been activated following a request of the Korean government. Among the emergency supplies available in the other three NOWPAP members (China, Japan and Russia), Korean government, taking into account logistical issues, accepted kind offers of 50 and 10 tonnes of sorbents from China and Japan respectively. Japan has also dispatched a team of experts in addition to the teams from the Joint UNEP/OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) Environment Unit and the European Commission Monitoring Information Center, U.S. Coast Guard and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (AUB).
Read more about this topic: 2007 South Korea Oil Spill
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