Madrid, Spain ? The Spanish military sent reinforcements and an oil platform was on its way to help with cleanup operations from the sunken tanker Prestige as officials spotted new slicks off already blackened coastal areas.

Two navy ships docked in the Atlantic port city of Vigo carrying 750 sailors tasked with cleaning hard-to-reach rocky coves in the Galicia region, the government said.

The army also said 4,500 soldiers and 500 air force members from all over Spain started traveling north on Sunday to join the effort.

The reinforcements will boost the number of military personnel helping to alleviate the ecological catastrophe to more than 8,000.

Meanwhile, neighboring Portugal said that it has hired a Norwegian oil platform that will arrive in a few days to suction oil from slicks at the site of the ship’s sinking – about 150 miles off the coast.

The Prestige sank Nov. 19