With up to 200,000 gallons of oil a day spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from a ruptured well, the accident stemming from a sunken offshore rig may soon rival the Exxon Valdez disaster as the worst oil spill in US history.

Strong southeast winds blew the first oily strands of the slick directly onto the coastal wetlands of South Pass near the mouth of the Mississippi river late Thursday, Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, where oil washed ashore, told AFP.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called on the federal government for emergency help to stave off an environmental disaster after a sudden change in the wind direction turned week-long response efforts on their head.

The dangerous slick early Thursday reportedly was just 16 miles (25 kilometers) from shore, but hundreds of miles of coastline were under threat in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

The euro hit a one-year dollar low with a downgrade of Spain’s credit rating accelerating its fall, escalating fears that the Greek debt crisis is spreading across Europe a day after Greek debt was slashed to junk status.

Greece meanwhile acted to stop speculators operating on the Athens stock exchange as the interest rate it has to pay to borrow money hit 11.1 percent, only trailing Pakistan and Venezuela in the world’s highest interest payers.

BP, which leases the Deepwater Horizon platform, has been operating four robotic submarines some 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) down on the seabed to try to cap two leaks in the riser pipe that connected the rig to the wellhead.

But the best efforts of the British energy giant have yielded no progress so far, and engineers are frantically constructing a giant dome that could be placed over the leaks as a back-up plan to try and stop the oil spreading.

Despite the extraordinary scenes that saw parliament — the Verkhovna Rada — filled with smoke, lawmakers ratified the deal to extend the stay of the Russian Black Sea fleet until at least 2042, denounced by the opposition as a sell-out for Ukraine.

The uproar started when the parliament speaker, Volodymr Lytvyn, was pelted with a volley of a dozen eggs, forcing him to duck for cover behind black umbrellas held by two aides.

The British energy giant — which leases the stricken Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible platform — is desperately trying to prevent a massive slick from growing and spreading to Louisiana’s ecologically fragile coast.

Satellite images on Sunday showed the slick had spread by 50 percent in a day to cover an area of 600 square miles (1,550 square kilometers), although officials said almost all the oil was just a thin veneer on the sea’s surface.

But Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva did not say when security forces would retake the Red Shirts’ vast protest site, occupied for three weeks and fortified with barricades made from truck tyres and sharpened bamboo poles.

Adding to the tension, the rival Yellow Shirt group, who are backed by the country’s elite, plan to meet on Monday upon the expiry of a deadline they set a week ago for the government to deal with the Reds.

Hopes for an agreement to end weeks of protests, which have been punctuated by deadly street clashes, evaporated as Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ruled out the “Red Shirts” offer to disperse if polls were called in 30 days.

“No, I reject it. Because they use violence and intimidation I cannot accept this,” Abhisit said of the proposal which would have seen a ballot held in 90 days and was a softening of earlier demands for snap polls.

The violence wounded dozens more and underscored the unrest that continues to plague a nation whose politicians are struggling to form a government almost seven weeks after a general election seen crucial to its long-term stability.

Two parked car bombs in the impoverished district of Sadr City killed 39 people and wounded 56, a security official said.