国际英语新闻：Long road to recover ahead of Gulf coast as spill cap collects more oil

Allen said the catastrophe has affected 193 km of U.S. coast line stretching from Louisiana to Florida and Washington will be dealing with the spill for another four to six weeks.

"We have a large volume still escaping," Tony Wood, director of the National Spill Control School at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, said.

"Cleanup levels up to twice as large as we have right now will go on for another year. The reality is that most of the spill, the vast majority of the spill, is still well offshore."

Experts said birds can die from ingesting the toxic liquid while cleaning it from their feathers and can go blind if oil gets into their eyes, as was the fate of many seals after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. Oil in birds' wings also prevents them from flying.

Six hundred animal species are at risk, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, including more than 400 fish species and 100 kinds of birds.

Meanwhile, scientists said the oil - brick red in places, chocolate brown in others - could spread as the hurricane season began. The crude could travel wherever a storm surge takes it -- even to New Orleans, for example.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research reported Thursday that its computer model indicated oil could drift upward along the Atlantic coast this summer.

The simulation suggests the oil could reach Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks if it gets caught in the loop current of the Gulf of Mexico. Then the Gulf Stream could pull it as far as North Carolina.

U.S. ECONOMY AFFECTED

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday reiterated that all those affected should be adequately compensated. He said it will take time and efforts to get through the crisis.

Later, he said he's been talking closely with Gulf Coast fishermen and various experts on the oil spill and not for lofty academic reasons.

"I talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers - so I know whose ass to kick," the president said.

U.S. officials said there has been a fishery disaster in the Gulf of Mexico due to the economic impact on commercial and recreational fisheries from the oil spill. The affected area includes the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The oil has also blighted the livelihoods of many residents in an area heavily dependent on tourism.

Commercial fishermen in the Gulf harvested more than 1 billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2008. In addition, there are approximately 5.7 million recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico region who took 25 million fishing trips in 2008.

Obama has urged BP not to be "nickel and diming" residents along the oil-stained Gulf of Mexico coast over damage claims while spending billions in shareholder dividends.

Opinion polls show many Americans are unhappy with his handling of the six-week-long spill, and Gulf coast residents have complained that the federal government has been slow to act and too dependent on energy giant BP for solutions.