Sangpill Kim's Blog

Please Remember these proud faces.

Environmental catastrophe in Taean

There was a serious oil pollution in the West Sea of Korea on December 7, 2007. A crane ship which was returning to after having finished the operation, crashed against an oil tanker anchored on the coast of Taean, a small seaside city in the West Sea which is famous for its beautiful scenery and seafoods. Tons of petroleum, 10,900 in total, leaked out from the tanker and the whole coast, 167 kilometers in total of its length, were contaminated severely. Moreover the oil is still being diffused expanding the contaminated region more and more.

This brought a serious damage in the sense of nature and as well as to the inhabitants who live on fishery and tour. The whole beach are dyed with black and all the lives are gone in Taean. Fishes, crabs, clams are not available any more and certainly none of any lives will not be able to exist within years. It would take more than 30 years to recover. Many people volunteered to aid the sea of lament. The volunteers, still at this moment as well, are struggling to remove the oil from sea and to clean the coast.

As all of you know well, Sun is the company of eco :) Yes! we were there. We joined the parade of volunteers instead of year-end holidays. The volunteer activity club in Sun Korea, Saran-Nanum proposed the event and the board of directors decided to cover all the expenses and take a day-off. About 100 employees and their families joined the event and did a tremendous hard work to clean up the shore for the sake of the nature, lives and next generations.

Now let me show some pictures of touching moments.

December 27, 2007
We arrived at Taean 3-4 hours away from Seoul.

We wore masks, raincoats, rubber globes, rubber boots and plastic backpacks
to protect ourselves from toxic gas and oil.

"Go Green, Save Green"
The eco slogan of Sun Korea

After the events we donated all of our equipments for later volunteers.

One of 3 buses we took, was for the employee's family.

He is Mr. Booyoung Chun, the 2nd man of Sun Korea.
He was accompanied by his 20 year old son.

 We met the rocky area where was mostly contaminated.

 The sea water was in better shape thanks to other volunteers.
Our job was to clean up the rocks.

  The petroleum is very sticky so it was really a hard work to wipe out the rocks stained with oil.

 They are the wonder guys, new hires, who are called MTs(Millennial Talents)
Of course, I am one of them, the most handsome :)

During the work we used many clothes and towels.
They could be another pollution source. So they should be removed carefully. 

 Can you see this dirty, shell covered, rock jumbled with oil?

 Once the oil is sticked to the rocks, it hardly comes off.

 Though we spent a whole day for the clean up,
the amount of oil we removed would be very tiny.

In spite of the severe pollution little crabs were still alive.
(Actually they were the only creatures alive)
In this case Koreans say that "A life is not alive"