Local tells of tanker devastation

The Spanish fishing port of Caion has seen some of the worst of the oil slick, which resulted from the sinking of the Prestige oil tanker. As the clean-up operation gets underway, local woman Angela Franco explains to BBC Radio 5Live's Paul Henley just how badly this spillage will hit the area.

It is a very big disaster, especially at this time of the year because December is the month when they earn the most money of all the year round.

Because seafood on the Spanish table on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is as important as turkey is in England on Christmas Day. In Spain you have to be very poor not to have seafood on your table for Christmas day.

This is the fourth time in 20 years, but it has never been as bad as this

It has a big impact on the local economy, not only for Christmas but for the next three years, because that's how long it will take for the rocks to clear.

That is because the mussels stick to the rocks and those rocks are full of oil. And this oil is not like the three previous ships that we had before.

This oil is full of chemicals and is much worse to clean up than it has been before. Once the rocks are clean it will take a year for things to grow into the rock and then to develop so you can eat it.

On Friday afternoon when this happened and we saw the beaches, we were all astonished. This is the fourth time in 20 years, but it has never been as bad as this.

Local people are helping to clear it up because they think that if we get rid of it sooner, the sooner we will start to get our own way of life back.

But what they don't realise is that although we will help, we will clear up, nature takes its course. It won't take the time we want, it will take the time it needs and that for us is very hard.