Members of the Pollution Response Team remove black oil washed ashore as a thick oily tide from the sea lapped at the coast, a day after an oil tanker and an LPG tanker collided off Kamarajar Port in Ennore, in Chennai, India. (Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images)

Nearly a week after the collision of two cargo ships spilled several tons of oil into the waters off southern India, ­hundreds of local officials and fishermen continued to struggle to clear the sludge that is now spreading into additional coastal areas, damaging local fishing communities.

The two ships, carrying liquefied petroleum gas and oil, collided Saturday near the Kamarajar port in the Bay of Bengal, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

“The ocean looks black and shiny. The rocks are slippery with the slick,” said Venkatesh ­Angamuthu, a 36-year-old fisherman in the Mugathuvarukuppam village. “Fifty of us from my village have been assisting the disaster team for the last two days to ­remove the slick manually with buckets. We have no protective masks or gloves. Our fish market is fully down.”

Observers say port officials lost crucial time fighting the spill because they were in denial about its extent for the first two days. At first, the port released a statement saying that “there was no damage to the environment like oil pollution.” But local fishermen began reporting a thick film of oil on the water. It was only on the third day that cleaning began. Later, officials kept revising the estimate of the leak, from one to 20 tons of oil.

“The government was in denial; we lost precious time because they kept saying, ‘Everything is under control,’ ” said Nityanand Jayaraman, an environmentalist who works among fishing communities in the state.

On Thursday, officials said that a total 60 tons of oil had spilled. (Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images)

“The leaking ship was made to stand there for two days, although it kept asking the port for permission to berth and unload the oil. In the meantime, the slick kept splitting and floating, making it difficult to contain.”

Some patches of slick spread more than 20 miles along the coast.

On Thursday, officials said that a total 60 tons of oil had spilled.

“About 85 percent of the estimated 60 tons of oil has been taken out until today. Fortunately, the spill is not in the mid-sea area, otherwise it would have been very difficult,” said D. Jayakumar, the fisheries minister of Tamil Nadu.

The government deployed ­“super sucker” machines, but they were mostly ineffective, ­Jayakumar said.

“About 1,500 people, consisting of coast guard workers and local fishermen, have been pulling out the sludge manually with buckets,” he said. “It is not unlike drawing water from a well.”

Local people reported that many fish and turtles have died, prompting environmentalists to warn of deeper damage to marine life. They also accused port ­authorities of being ill-prepared to deal with the environmental disaster.

Meanwhile, fear of buying and consuming fish spread across the state.

The government collected and tested fish samples and declared Wednesday that there was no contamination. Local officials also staged a public event where they ate fish to tell people that there was nothing to fear.

“We ate the fish near the sea, not in a restaurant, not in our homes yesterday,” Jayakumar said. “We want the fish market to resume.”

Activists say that the government is understating the damage.

Opposition lawmaker Kanimozhi, who uses only her first name, wrote a letter to the national shipping minister Wednesday saying “the marine ecosystem has been irreparably damaged.”

New Delhi has ordered an ­investigation.

Angamuthu, the fisherman, said the crisis is far from over.

“Nobody is buying the fish. It has a strong, foul smell of oil,” he said. “We don’t want our nets to get exposed to the oil and get damaged. The sea is our mother, but we do not think it is safe to go in.”

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