'We don't know exactly how much oil is out there,' said Elo Jacobsen on 25 August, a commander in the Danish navy and one of the marine experts sent by the EU as part of the Marine Pollution & Assessment Co-ordination Team to assist Beirut in the clean-up operation. 'Oil was cleaned from the old harbour two days ago, but work is continuing on the marina and we hope to be finished by the end of August. We have been using satellite pictures to assess the spread of the oil [slick] and we have asked for an aerial surveillance aircraft, equipped with infrared, to measure the thickness of the oil.'

The team has used two skimmers to remove the oil from the harbour. 'We have several temporary tanks which can contain up to 7.5 cubic metres (cm) of oil each. The oil [from the harbour] has so far filled four tanks, with up to 30 cm collected,' said Jacobsen.

As part of the first phase of the clean-up, the team assessed the spread of the slick, which covers around 200 kilometres of coastline and has so far spread north to the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartous.

The EU-sponsored team has been working closely with the Lebanese navy and the Environment Ministry. 'From the air it looks worse but out at sea there is now a very thin film of oil - so thin it is not worth collecting. In terms of the environment, it could be a disaster - but the effect on local wildlife will be hard to assess,' said Jacobsen.