The two most devastating effects of the prestige oil spill were upon the wildlife and natural environment, on the one hand, and upon the livelihoods of the Galician people, on the oter. Around 250 km of coastline was under threat from the oil spill and some 140 individual beaches became polluted. Over 15000 seabirds were killed by the oil and many more times this figure were put in danger. Thousands of volunteers helped the emergency services in the clean-up operation, but the Spanish government was heavily criticised for its lack of action in the earty day of the crisis and for misinformation. Worst hit were the Galician fisheries that employ about 2100 people, mainly as small family operation with individual fishing boats and small crews, which has to be shut down overnight. The Galician shellfish gatherers are some of the most important in Europe and they also had to stop operations. On top of this, the shellfish and crustaceans act as part of the food chain for a huge variety of other creatures including birds, porpoises and whales, which have had to migrate elsewhere in search of supplies of fish, crustaceans and shellfish. The biggest medium-term problem is knowing just how much more oil is likely to escape from a ship that is now on the ocean floor.