Oil spilled July 2 from a supertanker in Tokyo Bay amounts to about 1,550 kiloliters of crude, only one-10th the figure reported the night of the spill, Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama said July 3.
Kajiyama made the announcement at a hastily arranged news conference. The government had announced late July 2 that between 14,000 and 15,000 kiloliters of crude oil had leaked from the supertanker.
The spill from the Panamanian-registered, Japanese-owned 147,012-ton Diamond Grace spread extensively across the bay since the supertanker ran aground early July 2 about 6 km southeast of Yokohama port's Honmoku Pier. The drifting slick washed ashore at cargo piers at Honmoku and Daikoku in Yokohama and at Ogishima and Higashi-Ogishima in Kawasaki early July 3, according to the Maritime Safety Agency. But MSA chief Tsutomu Aihara said late July 3 that the size of the spill has considerably dwindled due to cleanup efforts.