Bid to stop oil slick spreading

BRITISH oil giant BP used robotic underwater vehicles yesterday to try to cap a leaking well and prevent a growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico from developing into an environmental disaster.

Satellite images showed the slick had spread by 50% in a day to cover an area of 600 square miles, although officials said some 97% of the pollution was just a thin veneer on the sea’s surface.

Some 1,000 barrels of oil a day are leaking into the sea from the damaged well, officials say.