Oil removed from sunken ferry in Philippines

Manila: Experts will start removing oil from a sunken ferry while its spill is being cleaned up before it is decided whether it will be buried deeper into the sea or cut up and removed from a shallower area where it sank off Cebu, central Philippines, a source said, adding that a decision will be done after bodies of more than 130 dead are accounted for.

The operator of the sunken St. Thomas Aquinas, 2Go Travel, has scheduled the arrival of experts in Cebu who will start removing what remains of the 120,000 litres of bunker fuel that the ill-fated ferry was carrying before it collided with MV Sulpicio Express, a cargo ship, and sank off Cebu last August 16, according to the report of Undersecretary Eduardo del Rosario, head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

This is part of a clean up procedure that is now being considered by the operator while efforts are underway to clean up the sunken ferry’s oil spill, which has reached several towns of Cebu’s Cordova, said del Rosario.

At the same time, the operator has started a series of consultations with foreign and local experts on what else to do with the ill-fated passenger ferry, said del Rosario, adding that one option included a total clean up of the ferry’s oil storage before it is towed to a deeper part of the sea.

The other option is to chop the ferry into several parts so that it would be taken out from the sea’s belly, at 30 metres deep, said del Rosario.

Meanwhile, divers from private groups, the Philippine Navy, and the Philippine Coast Guard are still trying to recover bodies from all the corners of the sunken ferry, said del Rosario.

The retrieval of bodies have not stopped because of the wishes of the families of the victims to bury their dead, said del Rosario.

A total of 82 bodies were recovered, and 55 more remained missing, raising to 137 the possible number of fatalities in the incident, said the NDRRMC. Earlier, reports said that a total of 120 might have perished from the sea mishap, with the recovery of 52 bodies and 68 missing. At the time only 31 bodies were identified.

Bad weather and rough seas have prevented rescuers from retrieving more bodies from the sunken ferry.

Commuters prefer to ride ferries and not airplanes as they travel across the country’s 7,000 islands.

Bad implementation of regulatory procedures often result in sea mishaps especially during the rainy season that starts in June. Some 20 typhoons savage the Philippines every year.