New Zealand oil spill reaches shore as bad weather holds up response

Tarballs appear on Bay of Plenty beaches as stricken freighter Rena has made the water "highly toxic". Fears high that the containment ship is going to break apart. - Oil has begun washing up on a popular beach on New Zealand's east coast, five days after the container ship Rena struck a reef in the Bay of Plenty. Officials urged people to avoid the area, warning that the water off Tauranga city had become "highly toxic". Efforts to remove oil from the ship, which ran aground on Astrolabe Reef in the early hours of Wednesday, have been suspended in the face of deteriorating weather conditions. On Sunday about 10 tonnes of fuel oil had been pumped into safe storage from the 236-metre-long ship but that represented a fraction of the 1,700 tonnes on board.