Samsung Heavy said it would give 100 billion won to provide quick aid for thousands of people hit by the Dec 7 oil spill off the west coast.

'This is the best we can do at this moment in light of the company's financial capacity,' said CEO Kim Jing Wan of Samsung Heavy, the shipbuilding, construction and engineering unit of the nation's biggest group.

The money was separate from any legally ordered compensation, he said.

Lee Wan Koo, governor of South Chungcheong province, criticised the offer.

'Samsung is detached from reality. This is far different from what is being demanded by residents,' Mr Lee was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

'The residents are demanding unlimited accountability and unlimited compensation from Samsung.'

The group has come under mounting pressure to act swiftly to compensate victims.

Three people in the worst-hit district of Taean, about 110 kilometres southwest of Seoul, killed themselves following delays by local officials in distributing emergency government aid.

One drank poison and set himself on fire at a protest rally.

Thousands staged an angry protest in Seoul in January, displaying oil-coated oysters, fish, anchovies and seaweed, while a few protesters pelted the headquarters of Samsung with oily fish.

Others used hammers to smash Samsung-made washing machines, TV sets and refrigerators they had brought to the rally.

The accident happened when a Samsung Heavy Industries barge carrying a construction crane snapped its cables to two tugs in rough seas and rammed the anchored 147,000-ton supertanker Hebei Spirit.

The Hong Kong-registered tanker was holed in three places, spilling 10,900 tons of crude.

Scores of marine farms and miles of beaches were devastated.

Five people - the skippers of the barge and of the two tugs, and the tanker's captain and chief officer - are on trial on charges of negligence and violating anti-pollution laws.

Samsung Heavy Industries and Hebei Shipping, a Hong Kong corporation which owns the tanker, have also been charged with violating anti-pollution laws. -- AFP