
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120200
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BOSTON                                LENGTH: Short

HIGH SEAS LEAVE FUEL IN TORN SHIP

Cleanup crews watched anxiously Monday as choppy seas and stiff winds delayed efforts to unload thousands of gallons of fuel that threatened to spill from the torn hull of the cruise ship Bermuda Star.

The 617-foot vessel was freed Sunday night from a rocky ledge off Cape Cod, almost 13 hours after it strayed too close to shore and ran aground in dense fog.

Divers found a 90-by-2-foot tear on the ship's bottom after it dropped anchor about three miles from the ledge in Buzzards Bay. The rip exposed four tanks holding more than 110,000 gallons of fuel oil, the Coast Guard said.

Coast Guard officials confirmed Monday night that 7,500 gallons of fuel had spilled from the ship's tanks into the bay. Part of that spill washed ashore at Naushon Island in the bay, the Coast Guard told a news conference in Providence, R.I.

The oil splashed the largely unpopulated island with a gooey swath up to 4 feet wide along a 5-mile stretch of shoreline, said Coast Guard Cmdr. Larry Doyle.

- Associated Press

by CNB