"Salvage ship Fair Jolly is under repair as it had developed some technical fault," Karachi Port Trust official Brigadier Iftikhar Arshad told AFP.

Barges were expected later Sunday to resume the operation to remove 18,000 tonnes of oil still on the MV Tasman Spirit, which ran aground off Karachi on July 27 and began to spew some of the 62,000 tonnes of oil it held.

"We have arranged three barges of 2,000-tonnes capacity each that are expected to start oil salvage operations later this (Sunday) evening or tonight," Arshad said.

A fourth barge with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes had set sail from the southwestern Gwadar coast and was expected in Karachi by late afternoon, he said.

The Greek-flagged ship broke up on August 14 after some 20,000 tonnes had been salvaged. Since last Sunday another 12,000 tonnes of oil has been removed.

The Fair Jolly's Dutch captain, Van Lamb, and a Greek crew member, Nick Ppas, had meanwhile fallen sick were recovering at a Karachi hospital, Arshad said.

Efforts to removed the oil from the MV Tasman Spirit have already been hampered by rough seas.

The spill is the worst experienced by Pakistan and has destroyed young mangroves, turtles and fish along Karachi's 16-kilometre (10-mile) coastline.

"The leakage of oil from the damaged tanker is still continuing but it was minor," Arshad said.

The United Arab Emirates-registered Fair Jolly, with a capacity of 8,000 tonnes, had been ferrying oil from the Tasman Spirit onto another UAE ship, the Endeavour-II, anchored at Karachi port.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who visited Karachi Sunday, has ordered a probe into the reasons for the spill.

Port officials said they believed navigational error was the cause.

Authorities have closed the Karachi beach to the public and do not expect to open it for another month as workers toil to remove blackened sand and piles of dead marine life soaked by oil.

TERRA.WIRE