Mississippi R. closed by oil spill

(CNN) - The Coast Guard Wednesday closed a nearly 30-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from central New Orleans downriver after a collision between a fuel barge and a tanker spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of heavy fuel oil.

The collision occurred about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday (2:30 a.m. ET), just north of the massive bridges connecting downtown New Orleans to communities on the west bank of the Mississippi, said Petty Officer Thomas Blue, a Coast Guard spokesman. The 590-foot Liberian-flagged tanker Tintomara was not damaged in the collision, but the crash split the barge nearly in half, dumping more than 419,000 gallons of oil into the river, the agency reported.

The Coast Guard closed 29 miles of the river downstream as part of the cleanup effort and deployed tens of thousands of feet of containment booms to contain the spill, Blue said. Rain has also helped dissipate the oil slick, he said.