Vietnamese rescue workers Wednesday started pumping out 1,700 tonnes of oil from a capsized ship, while efforts to find four missing sailors continued, officials told AFP.
"We have started pumping the oil out of 10 tanks through the overturned ship's pipe system," Pham Quoc Te of the National Committee for Search and Rescue said.
"We'll try to finish the work within the next two or three days," he added.
One sailor survived and 10 dead bodies have been recovered since the Duc Tri oil tanker overturned in bad weather earlier this month.
Rescue workers are still trying to find the four missing sailors along the southern coast, Te added.
The ship first started drifting off the southern coast but was later fixed with anchors about one nautical mile off Ba Kiem Head in Ba Ria Vung Tau province.
Officials said Wednesday there had been no leak yet from the ship's 10 tanks. But oil from the engine had reached the beaches of some southern provinces.
"The biggest challenge is that we don't have a ship with the capacity to contain the whole 1,700 oil tonnes to be pumped out," said Trinh Vu Anh, deputy head of the southern agency in charge of containing oil spills.
"The shipwreck is under control now, but it can be broken at any time due to weather or the ship's imbalance as we pump oil out" he added.
