Cleanup efforts were underway on Friday after a barge collided with a tanker in the Mississippi River, spilling more than 419,000 gallons (1.6 million litres) of fuel oil, the US Coast Guard said. Officials closed a 100-mile stretch of the river, from New Orleans down to the Gulf of Mexico, after the oil tanker Tintomara collided with an American Commercial Lines barge that was being pushed by a tug boat.
The 600-foot (183-meter) oil tanker sustained no damage but the crash split the barge nearly in two, and the thick, smelly oil poured into the river just off downtown New Orleans.
"There were no properly licensed individuals on the (tugboat) vessel during the time that the incident occurred," the Coast Guard said in a statement on Thursday, after launching an investigation along with the National Transportation Safety Board.