Russia Faces Major Oil Spill Disaster

Rescuers on Monday recovered the bodies of three sailors after a Russian freighter sank near the Black Sea, while officials assessed damage from an oil tanker spill that could be the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.

The bodies of sailors from the freighter Nakhichevan were recovered near Tuzla on the western side of the Strait of Kerch, a narrow waterway linking the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. Emergency Situations spokesman Sergei Kozhemyaka said rescuers were looking for five others.

The Nakhichevan was one of two freighters that broke up as 18-foot waves and high winds battered ships throughout the region. As many as 10 ships sank or ran aground in the northern Black Sea region during the fierce storm, including the Volganeft-139, an oil tanker loaded with nearly 1.3 million gallons of fuel oil.

Nearly half its cargo spilled into the strait and was washing up on nearby shorelines in what officials said it could be the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.

After rescuing the Russian tanker's 13 crew members, workers began what could be a long-term effort to clean up the spill. They shoveled the tar-like, oil-laden sands and seaweed into piles on the shore as slick-covered waters lapped at their boots. Oil covered birds could be seen trying to swim flap their wings.

Anatoly Yanhuck, a regional coast guard officer, said workers would begin pumping oil from the tanker once the weather improves, then tow the ship to port.

Investigators will question the ship's captain but Yanhuck said the weather appeared to have been worse than forecast.

Maxim Stepanenko, a regional prosecutor, told Vesti 24 television on Sunday that captains had been warned about the stormy conditions. He said the Volganeft-139 - designed during Soviet times to transport oil on rivers - was not built to withstand a fierce storm.

The Nakhichevan and the other freighter together were carrying about 7,150 U.S. tons of sulfur, which also spilled into the waters.

Russian environmental officials said the sulfur did not appear to pose any environmental danger. Jim Farr, a chemist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, compared the spill to dumping a load of sand in the water and smothering a reef, or covering a patch of grass with a blanket.

However, he said that it was difficult to know the long-term effects without better knowledge of the area's depth and currents.

Vesti 24 also reported the sinking of a Russian freighter carrying metal near the port of Sevastopol on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Two members of its 16-man crew drowned and one was missing, it said.

Federal investigators have also began a criminal investigation into San Francisco Bay's worst oil spill in nearly two decades by questioning crew members of a container ship that struck the Bay Bridge, ripping a gash in its fuel tank.

It was in thick fog that the container ship hit a support on the Bay Bridge, ripping open two fuel tanks, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

The ship struck the bridge early Wednesday, causing no structural damage to the span but leaking some 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. The thick, toxic fuel has fouled miles of coastline, forced the closure of nearly two dozen beaches and piers and killed dozens of seabirds.