Hundreds of Russian soldiers were deployed on Tuesday to clean up a 2,000-tonne oil spill in environmentally sensitive waters caused by a fierce Black Sea storm that wrecked five ships. Officials warned of "an environmental catastrophe" as high winds and heavy rain continued to lash Russia`s southern coastline, with local radio reports saying gales could reach 144 kilometres (90 miles) per hour. On the Tuzla Spit, near the place where waves smashed an oil tanker in half on Sunday, an AFP reporter saw around 200 emergency workers, soldiers and Cossacks shovelling sand and seaweed caked with fuel oil into some 20 trucks. "We`re clearing up the shore and the water and we`re pumping oil out from a tanker damaged in the storm," Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Russian government`s environmental monitoring agency, told AFP by telephone. "If that 2,000-tonne spill moves further into the Sea of Azov there will be serious environmental consequences. It has a fragile ecosystem," said Mitvol, who arrived in the affected area on Monday. The Kerch Strait where the spill occurred is a waterway separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov that is an important migration route for birds and home to the Black Sea porpoise. The picturesque area, which is dotted with Cossack villages and lagoons, is renowned for its wine and is popular among Russian tourists for its wildlife, beaches and healing mud baths. Mitvol said a total of 730 workers had been mobilised to clear up the spill, including 500 soldiers. He also said Russian officials would try and contain the slick with booms. Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov was due to arrive later Tuesday at the crisis centre in Port Kavkaz, a commercial hub some 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) south of Moscow that was the area worst affected by the high winds. Fears were also growing over the fate of five sailors still missing in Russian waters and 15 more in Ukrainian waters after Sunday`s storm battered the north-eastern corner of the Black Sea. The bodies of three sailors, still in life jackets, were washed ashore on Monday on the Tuzla Spit, near the disputed maritime border between Russia and ex-Soviet Ukraine. Thirty-six other crew members were rescued from the shipwrecks on Sunday. Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was expected to visit the Russian side of the Kerch Strait on Tuesday as Ukrainian authorities helped rescue efforts, Ukrainian officials said. On Monday, thick fuel oil deposits could be seen clogging the beaches around Port Kavkaz. Oil-soaked cormorants struggled in the polluted water as rescue workers shovelled away the oil. Regional governor Alexander Tkachyov said 30,000 birds had died. Three Russian ships laden with sulphur sank in or near Port Kavkaz on Sunday. Five-metre high waves broke apart another oil tanker, the Volgoneft-139, on Sunday, causing the spill. A second tanker, the Volgoneft-123, suffered two cracks in its hull but officials said the leak had been insignificant. The fuel oil from the second tanker was being pumped out of the ship on Tuesday. "I`ve never seen weather like this," said a cafe owner in Port Kavkaz, who declined to be named, as the high winds lashed her cafe and cars queued outside for a passenger ferry to Ukraine. "There aren`t going to be any holiday-makers next year because of this. People around here live mainly off that," she said.