It is looking pretty rough for the people and beach habitat.:

"By CNN Madrid bureau chief Al Goodman
Monday, December 9, 2002 Posted: 11:30 AM EST (1630 GMT)
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Three thousand Spanish soldiers have joined the battle to clean the country's oil-covered northwest coast.

The deployment came as the government warned that the tanker Prestige, which sank 210 km (130 miles) off the Spanish coast on November 29, was still leaking oil.

France has remained on high alert after oil slicks rounded the tip of northern Spain, blackening dozens of previously untouched Spanish beaches and closing in on the French coast near Biarritz.

Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Monday that experts have located three additional cracks in the stern of the Prestige, a day after confirming that the stern was leaking with two other cracks.

The troops are replacing thousands of university students and other volunteers who flocked to do clean-up work over the long holiday weekend but who are now returning to their jobs and studies.

Rajoy said there were nearly 5,000 people cleaning up beaches, nearly half of them from the military.

The Prestige first started leaking some of its 77,000 tons (20 million gallons) of fuel oil on November 13.

The tanker split in two and sank six days later, and leaks from the bottom of the sea pose an ominous third chapter of oil slicks threatening the Spanish coast and its lucrative fishing industry and protected wildlife.

The ship's bow and stern are separated by 3.5 km (two miles) on the ocean floor.

The government said 14,000 tons of spilled fuel has been retrieved so far, mainly at sea by a fleet of specially equipped clean-up ships from various European nations.

But critics say the government's estimate that a total of 17,000 tons has spilled is far short of reality.

Until now, the government has indicated that 60,000 tons of fuel, or 75 percent of the initial cargo, might remain aboard the sunken vessel.

But European Union Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, a Spaniard, said only 50,000 tons might remain aboard.

After meeting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, she added the government was now considering even a worst-case scenario -- that all of the fuel on the sunken tanker might leak out.

Previously, the government had insisted the fuel on the ocean floor would congeal in near-freezing temperatures and pose little threat to the coast.

A fishing ban already extends 913 km (566 miles), but the deadly reach of the numerous oil slick extends beyond far those limits.

The slicks have rounded the tip of northwest Spain, blackened the northern coast, and closed in on France