Some 3,500 tonnes of heavy oil remains in the tanks of the MSC Napoli, which ran aground off the southwest English coast at the weekend, spilling dozens of containers onto the shoreline.

"We have started pumping the oil from the vessel," said a spokesman for the company overseeing the salvage operation, adding that the process would last about a week.

The vessel ran into problems in the Channel amid fierce storms Thursday.

With large gashes on both sides, it was towed towards port, but never made it. Fearing the battered vessel would have broken apart and sunk, officials ordered tugs to beach it.

The 62,000-tonne container ship, 275 metres (900 feet) long, is lying in shallow water off Branscombe village, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of the city of Exeter.

The ship was carrying 2,323 containers, but over 100 have so far fallen off the ship, which is listing at an angle of up to 25 degrees.

On Monday hundreds of locals, and people from further afield, poured onto the beach to seize goods ranging from nappies to BMW motorcycles from containers washed up from the wreck.

On Tuesday authorities condemned some of them as "despicable," and ordered the main beach at Branscombe closed.

"The beach is being closed at this moment in time," said Robin Middleton, the government official in charge, adding that the salvage operation "is likely to take a year."

Beachcombers could face arrest "as a last resort", Mark Rodaway, the official in charge of the wreck, warned, adding that their activities had made the environmental impact "800 percent worse".

On the salvage front, two barges equipped with heavy-lifting cranes have been ordered, but are not expected to arrive before Thursday, when they will be used to remove the containers and take them to a port along the coast.

Some 200 tonnes of lighter fuel oil had already leaked from the vessel, causing a slick several miles (kilometers) long, but experts said that this was breaking up with the action of the waves.

Branscome lies on the so-called Jurassic Coast, which is a United Nations-registered World Heritage Site. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said Tuesday that up to 900 seabirds had been affected by the oil slick.

Nearby river estuaries have protective booms deployed. A special tug ship with heavy-lifting and anti-pollution equipment was en route from northern France to help recover the ship's missing containers.

Amid the chaos, there was one piece of goods news Tuesday: a Swedish woman who feared her family heirlooms were looted from one of the containers on the ship was told she will get some of them back.

Anita and Jan Bokdal's possessions -- including family photos, furniture and carpets -- were being transported from Sweden to their winery in South Africa on board the MSC Napoli.

But after her story was reported by the media, one beachcomber had alerted authorities. "The person that recovered them has delivered them so we can reunite her with her things," said a spokesman for Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

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