New Zealand Oil Spill: Oil To Be Pumped From Stricken Ship Rena (14 PHOTOS)

WELLINGTON, Oct 18 — Rough weather today forced salavage teams to halt pumping oil from a stricken container ship off the New Zealand coast in what has turned into the country’s worst environmental disaster in decades.

The Liberian-flagged Rena has been stuck for 13 days on a reef 22km off Tauranga on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It has already spilled about 350 tonnes of thick, toxic fuel and some of its hundreds of containers into the sea.