Barge with Guimaras debris sinks off Misamis Occidental

Fears of another environmental disaster were raised anew Tuesday morning after a barge carrying debris from the Guimaras oil spill sank off Misamis Occidental Monday night.

The Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) said the incident took place at 10 p.m. Monday, when the barge was carrying debris cleaned up from Guimaras.

Interviewed over QTV-11 television, Misamis Occidental Gov. Loreto Leo Ocampos said the barge sank some 5.5 km off the coastal town of Plaridel.

Ocampos said senior officials of Petron Corp., which chartered the barge to transport the debris to Mindanao, told him that strong waves and powerful winds caused the sinking.

"Petron's technical personnel assured us that as of the moment, there are no clear indications of an oil spill. They reported a thin layer of oil, like a rainbow on the water, not the thick sludge," Ocampos said in Filipino.

However, Marina officials did not immediately say if there were casualties in the sinking.

The barge was transporting some 630 metric tons of rocks, sand and tree branches in 59,000 sacks, Petron said.

In a statement, Petron Corp. identified the sunken ship as the Barge Ras. The smaller vessel, the Tugboat Vega, was pulling the barge to Lugait town in Misamis Oriental.

The country's largest oil firm tried to downplay the ecological impact of the incident, saying the debris "has been weathering for three months and is highly unlikely to pose a danger to the communities, shorelines or marine life."

Petron had been tagged as among the parties responsible for the August 11 sinking of the MT Solar I tanker off the coast of Guimaras Island.

The Board of Marine Inquiry found Petron liable for overloading the vessel at the firm's Limay port in Bataan two days before the incident.

The MT Solar I was carrying 2.2 million liters of industrial fuel when it sank.

The Department of National Defense (DND) has postponed its deadline to siphon the oil from sunken tanker, pushing its timetable from October to either December or January.

Residents' safety

Ocampos said fishing activities around Plaridel were halted four days ago because of bad weather. Now, the skies have cleared and the seas are "flat," the governor said.

He has also been in touch with government officials. "They are assuring us that the national government will look into it very quickly. They are alerting all concerned Provincial Disaster Coordinating Councils just in case there may be great contamination," Ocampos said.

For his part, Petron spokesman Raffy Ledesma told dzBB radio that the debris "poses no threat to health" of residents of the province, particularly in Ozamiz City. He said Petron has mobilized equipment to clean the mess.

Ozamiz is a classified as a second-class city with a population of 110,420 people in 22,170 households.-GMANews.TV