The Philippines' worst oil spill could plunge one of the country's poorest provinces deeper into poverty by ravaging fisheries and other coastal resources, officials said.
The Solar I, carrying 2 million liters of fuel oil, sank on Friday in deep waters south of the island province of Guimaras.
Provincial Governor Joaquin Nava said on Wednesday that the oil spill has affected or damaged 15km2 of coral reefs, over 200km of coastline, 1,000 hectares of marine reserves, at least two resort islands and 50 hectares of seaweed plantations.
Nava said about a third of his province's 150,000 constituents live off the sea and an estimated 10,000 residents of coastal villages who rely on fishing are temporarily without livelihood.
"Only lately, we pulled ourselves out of the 20 poorest [provinces in the Philippines]. Now I suppose we will be going back," Nava said.
The provincial government on Monday declared a "state of calamity" in Guimaras, which allows the speedy release of relief funds in the area, about 500km southeast of Manila.
Valladolid town, in nearby Negros Occidental Province east of Guimaras, made a similar declaration on Tuesday as the oil slick approached its shores.
Coast guard officials did not know how much of the fuel oil has spilled out from the tanker, which is lying 900m under water.
Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes told provincial officials that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo instructed him to seek help from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Nicasio Alcantara, chairman of Petron Corp, the fuel supplier, promised to fulfill its responsibilities in helping with the cleanup.
Clemente Cancio of tanker owner Sunshine Maritime Development Corp said his company will send British experts to assess whether the tanker might be salvaged or the remaining fuel oil siphoned out.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
Prime ministers, presidents and royalty on Saturday descended on Cairo to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities. The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, the COVID-19 pandemic and wars in neighboring countries. “We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a news conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a
RSS