Thousands of fishermen in the Philippines have been ordered to stay ashore as authorities struggled on March 3 to contain an oil spill from a sunken tanker.
The tanker was carrying 800,000 litres of industrial fuel oil from Bataan province, near Manila, to the central province of Iloilo.
The slick off Mindoro island, south of the capital Manila, stretched for 120 kilometres and was about nine kilometres offshore, said Ram Temena, disaster operations chief in the affected province of Mindoro Oriental.
Diesel fuel, which had been powering the Philippine tanker, and some of the cargo have leaked into the sea, the coast guard said previously, sparking concern for the environment and industries dependent on the ocean.
The situation was “getting worse”, said provincial Governor Humerlito Dolor.
He had ordered the province’s 18,000 registered fishermen to stay on shore until it was safe to fish. In the meantime, they would receive food packs./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency