'Little hope' for Alaska sailors

Both pieces of the freighter are grounded upright

The US Coast Guard has called off a search for six missing crew of a tanker which ran aground and split in half on Wednesday off the coast of Alaska.

A statement said there was little hope survivors would be found given the icy water temperature and the type of clothes the men were wearing.

Attention now turns to thousands of gallons of oil which have leaked from the ship near Unalaska Island.

Environmentalists warn the spill could have a disastrous impact on wildlife.

The area where the spill happened is a sensitive habitat for mammals and birds, and also a crab fishery.

"It's a serious spill, it's going to be very difficult to deal with," said Kurt Fredriksson, from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

The Coast Guard is standing by with oil containment equipment near the site of the spill.

A 40-member response team has been assembled in Dutch Harbor, on the other side of the island.

But the team needs a break in the weather to start the clean-up, and winds appeared to be strengthening.

Wildlife in the area include several endangered or threatened species including Steller sea lions and Steller's eiders.

The area is also home to western Alaska sea otters whose population has dropped to low levels.

The spill, though much smaller, is being compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 when 11 million gallons spilled near a remote wildlife haven.

Search hampered

The six members of the tanker's crew plunged into the sea when a US Coast Guard helicopter crashed while evacuating them from the freighter.

Four other people, including three coast guard members, were rescued.The cause of Wednesday's helicopter crash is still unknown.

The search for the missing crew had been hampered by strong winds, heavy seas and the shortage of daylight in the area, 1,300km (800 miles) south-west of Anchorage.

The missing crew members were reported to be from India and the Philippines.

Survival time in the cold, heavy seas was estimated to be just three hours.

But coast guards said there was a slim chance some of them could have got ashore.

The 40,000-tonne Malaysian-flagged Selendang Ayu broke in two after running aground in the Aleutian chain of islands off south-western Alaska.

It had been drifting after its main engine broke down on Tuesday.

The ship was carrying soya beans and around 480,000 gallons (2.3 million litres) of fuel oil.