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Sat 11 Nov 2002How would we cope?How ready is Ireland to deal with a similar tanker disaster? Despite steps taken since the Kowloon Bridge accident, there is still no State-run salvage tug, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine CorrespondentCould this island cope with an incident like the Prestige? Not without considerable, immediate, international assistance, according to the more optimistic maritime experts. The precise scale of pollution from the sunken oil tanker still has to be quantified, but it would take a spill one-sixth the volume of the Amoco Cadiz to suspend coastal activities and marine tourism on this coastline. That grounding off the Brittany coast in 1978 spewed out 221,000 tonnes of crude oil which severely polluted 380 kilometres of the north-western French seaboard.