Majorca running on reserve as panic buying grips island

Majorca was running on reserve last night, with petrol stations across the island starting to run out of fuel by early evening and queues for petrol getting longer as night fell. The handful of protesting fishermen who manned the pickets outside the island's main CLH fuel depots throughout Monday night were yesterday joined by colleagues and farmers as demonstrations against rising fuel prices started to gather momentum again. Last night there was little sign of a break in the deadlock as motorists started panic buying as word spread across the island. At a meeting yesterday morning between the fishing fleet and the farmers' union it was decided that protest action was to be stepped up and, similar to events in Britain, a handful of farmers and truckers have brought the island to a near halt. Fuel tankers are only being allowed out of their depots to meet minimum services - the emergency services. Last night spokesperson for the fishing fleet, Bernat Oliver, warned that the depot blockades will continue at least until this morning “but that all depends on talks in Madrid which started yesterday afternoon,” Oliver said that if a satisfactory offer emerges then the protest will be scaled down. But there were warnings last night from the President of the Association of Balearic Petrol Stations, Miguel Clar, that if the blockades have not been removed by this morning, the island's petrol stations will have been run dry. “We are now being hit directly and the normal reserves, which are enough to last four days under normal circumstances, are being run dry,” he said yesterday.