Philippines - Explosion on 2006-05-11 at 05:14:39


Ref: EX-20060511-6047-PHL

RSOE HAVARIA Situation Update No. 2
On 2006-08-31 at 09:20:45 [UTC]

Event: Explosion
Location: Philippines Bataan province

Situation

An oil leak from a sunken tanker in the central Philippines has tapered off as efforts to clean up the country's worst oil spill continued, the coast guard chief said Thursday. Vice Admiral Arthur Gosingan said a Japanese salvage company conducting a physical examination of the ship that sank off Guimaras Island, 495 kilometres south of Manila, reported that it has not detected any leakage 'as of now.' The Okinawa-based company was using a remote-operated vehicle that surveys the ship with underwater cameras. 'In their last report, they have detected a crack on the starboard side, on the right side of the ship but they have not detected any leakage as of now,' he said.

'On the surface, we have seen sheen (of oil) only, that means that whatever comes out is very, very minimal,' he added. Gosingan, however, said that video transmissions from the bottom of the sea still showed that there were smudges of oil on the crack of the sunken MT Solar 1, indicating that there has been a leakage there. MT Solar 1 was carrying some 2 million litres of bunker fuel when it sank off Guimaras on August 11 after it was battered by strong winds and huge waves. Coast Guard officials have estimated that some 500,000 litres of bunker fuel have already spilled out of the sunken vessel and underscored the need to immediately remove the remaining oil from the ship to prevent further leakage.

Some 40,000 residents have been adversely affected by the oil slick. Local officials said many residents of Guimaras, most of whom are fishermen, have lost their livelihood due to the accident. The sludge has already affected 66 square kilometres of sea, 220 kilometres of coastline, 1,143 hectares of a national marine reserve and 454 hectares of mangroves, the government said. Several countries, including Germany, Japan, the United States, Australia and France, have heeded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's appeal for help in containing the spill. The spill was the second in eight months. In December, a barge owned by the state-controlled National Power Corp spilled some 364,120 litres of bunker fuel at nearby Semirara Island. The Semirara spill, however, was confined to a cove which affected only 100 hectares of mangrove plantation.