Japan Oil Spill

Villagers relay buckets filled up with spilled oil from a sunken Russian tanker in the Sea of Japan Wednesday, Jan. 8, 1997, in their cleanup effort after parts of the slick fouled a mile of the coast near Mikuni, a quiet town of 24,000 on Japan's western shoreline, 200 miles west of Tokyo. Fishermen feared the the 962,000-gallon slick, one of Japan's worst oil spills ever, would ruin the seaweed, abalone and shellfish cultivated in the area. (AP Photo/ Tetsuji Hamada, ASAHI)