The White House also said that top U. S. officials told President Barack Obama the Gulf of Mexico oil spill flow rate could increase by 20 percent before it is contained.

The president has ordered a tripling of government and contractor resources in the response to the spill, the administration said in a statement issued on Sunday. Obama had been briefed Sunday by Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the commander of the U. S. response to the spill, and by Carol Browner, an assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the statement said.

The statement further said that during the briefing, the president was updated on oil skimming, dispersing and burn operations and on energy giant BP's efforts to move equipment into place for use in installing "an alternate containment device."

Officials in the region have stepped up efforts to "be more responsive to needs identified by local communities," Allen indicated on Sunday.

BP said that it could take a week to put in place a containment cap in the latest attempt to stop the flow of oil. The company Saturday abandoned the "top kill" method, pumping in 30,000 barrels of heavy mud over three days, after it failed to stem the flow of oil.

It would take four to seven days to put the containment cap in place in hopes of ending the biggest oil leak in U. S. history, Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said at a Saturday news conference.

Suttles said, "This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far. Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at
5,000 feet.''

In the latest attempt, robots on the seafloor a mile beneath the service are to cut a riser pipe and cap it.

The persistent spill is "as enraging as it is heartbreaking," Obama, who toured the gulf region last week, said on Saturday night.

Obama said in a statement, "Every day that this leak continues is an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods, and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us."

Some experts believe the leak will be stopped only with completion of two relief wells, which could take until August. The relief wells are designed to remove enough pressure to cap the open one, Obama further said. (With Inputs from Agencies)