The result of a collision last week between the Greece-registered bulk carrier Syros and another bulker of similar size, the Sea Bird, registered in Malta, was the death of some 60 penguins.

Another 34 penguins, covered in oil but alive, also appeared on the beaches of this South American nation’s southern coast, Richard Tesore of the SOS-Marine Life Rescue environmental group told local online news outlet Observa.

The dead and soiled birds were Magellanic penguins, which migrate between southern Argentina and the coast of southeast Brazil, Tessore said.

The penguins may have swum through oil spilt when Syros, a Greece-registered boat, and Sea Bird, a vessel registered in Malta, collided near Montevideo last Wednesday. Officials said the collision produced a 20km-long spill near the Rio de la Plata river.

A spokesman for Uruguay’s Navy, Marcelo Larrobla, told Observa it was still too early to tell what had killed the

penguins.