Barack Obama, the US president, has ordered all new domestic offshore oil drilling to be put on hold until the current disaster has been fully investigated.
Obama said on Friday that the government had dispatched teams to the coast "to inspect all deep water rigs and platforms to address safety concerns", after oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico reached US shores on Thursday night.
"We've laid 217,000 feet of protected boom and there are more on the way," he said in Washington.
Officials said that the leak, from the oil rig that sunk after a massive explosion last week, was five times worse than previously thought, and could trigger a disaster of "national significance" on the Gulf coast.
The massive slick prompted the southern US state of Louisiana to declare a state of emergency and the White House to step up its response.
Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker, reporting from a fishing port south of New Orleans, said fishermen were out in the early hours of Friday, trying to get as much of their catch as they could before the oil slick was expected to hit the shore.
"People have been hearing that they have about one or two days left to fish before the whole operation is shut down," he said.
"There's an atmosphere of extreme concern here, with fishermen trying to get as much as they can before things get even worse." soccer jerseys
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