Ecuador has declared an emergency in the Galapagos Islands, with a dire warning that a damaged cargo ship that ran aground last week threatens the archipelago's fragile ecosystem.

Lorena Tapia Nunez , the country's environment minister, said an estimated 19,000 gallons of diesel fuel had been removed from the Galapaface I, but other pollutants inside the vessel could spill into the water.

Data from the Wall Street Journal estimates about 1,100 tons of highly polluting motor oil and cleaning products remain on board and have yet to leak out.

The Ecuadorean-flagged freighter became stranded off the rocky coast of San Cristobal island Friday, May 9.

A major tourist attraction 625 miles off the coast of Ecuador, which claims the 19 islands, the Galapagos are located at the confluence of three ocean currents and, as such, are home to unique animal species, including the giant tortoise, marine iguana and flightless cormorant.

Ongoing seismic and volcanic activity reveal the ongoing processes that have developed the island from their beginnings.

Those geologic processes, along with the extreme isolation of the island chain, led to the development of the unusual animal life that prompted Charles Darwin to propose his theory of evolution by natural selection, after he visited the islands in 1835.

"The ship is stranded and continues to present an environmental risk for the Galapagos Marine Reserve," the area's governor, Jorge Torres, reportedly told the Efe news agency.

Nunez posted via Twitter a picture of a condor that had been rescued from polluted water.

The emergency order will stay in effect for six months, the environment ministry said, and is designed to protect the archipelago's marine reserve, particularly the "area affected by the stranding and possible sinking of the cargo ship Galapaface I," a government release said.

In 2001 a stranded oil tanker spilled nearly 800,000 gallons of crude into the area, nearly killing off the marine iguana population.