BEIJING - Authorities in China rushed to clean up an oil spill at the mouth of the Yangtze River after an Iranian-registered ship ran aground in bad weather, state media said Monday.

The freighter "Zoorik" was stranded Sunday at Luhuashan in eastern Zhejiang province and the 37 people on board - including a two-year-old boy - were airlifted to safety, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But fuel began spilling out of the ship shortly after the accident, and Xinhua pictures published online of the stranded freighter showed a large oil slick covering the stretch of water between the vessel and the coast.

Authorities dispatched 30 workers on four boats to clean up the spill, but the operation was hindered by winds of up to 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour, Xinhua quoted the maritime bureau in nearby Zhoushan city as saying.

More workers were to be sent to the scene once the wind subsides, the report said.

The accident came the same day a ship laden with 100 tonnes of hydrochloric acid sank farther up the Yangtze, in central Hubei province, after colliding with another vessel, Xinhua reported.

The report did not say if the acid was contained on the sunken ship or had contaminated the water.

However, the agency cited officials from the provincial environmental protection department as saying tests on the water revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Neither the Zhoushan maritime bureau nor the environmental protection bureau in Ezhou city, which is responsible for the salvage of the ship in Hubei, were immediately available for comment.