Nearly 80,000 barrels of oil were spilled from a punctured supertanker off South Korea's western coast earlier this month, about 20 percent more than previous estimates, an official said Thursday.
The Hong Kong-registered tanker, which initially carried 1.9 million barrels of oil, leaked the equivalent of 78,920 barrels into the water, Kim said.
That places the spill at nearly a third the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster that sent 260,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.
The spill, some 2 1/2 times bigger than South Korea's worst previous spill in 1995, has severely jeopardized the ecosystem and spoiled hundreds of seafood farms in the area, which is also a prime tourism attraction.
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Oil Spill in South Korea Underestimated
The spill has severely jeopardized the ecosystem and spoiled hundreds
