Within a week of the spill, local and international conservation groups had organized a massive cleanup operation. A temporary rehabilitation center was set up in an old train warehouse in Cape Town. When the penguins first arrived, they were placed in plastic pools, about 80 birds to a pen. They were held and fed in the pens until it was their turn to be cleaned, which could be a long wait. It took two people nearly an hour to clean one bird, scrubbing them feather-by-feather with toothbrushes. Rescuers could only clean about 400 birds per day. With 25,000 dirty birds, a penguin might wait several weeks for its turn.