A crab covered in oil creeps across the sand as Philippine fishers wearing white protective suits, rubber gloves and masks scrape toxic sludge from the rocks along the shore.
Four weeks after a Philippine tanker loaded with 800,000 liters of oil sank off the central island of Mindoro, the vessel is still leaking.
More than half the oil has been discharged and dispersed over hundreds of kilometers of waters famed for having some of the most diverse marine life in the world.
Photo: AFP
Experts estimate the two main slicks northwest and southeast of the tanker could span 162km2.
It took two days for the spill to reach Buhay na Tubig, a remote village in Pola, one of the island’s worst-affected municipalities.
Some residents got sick after oil smeared the shoreline, turning rocks black and leaving dark globs on the beach.
Authorities have banned fishing and swimming indefinitely, leaving thousands of fishers wondering how long they can survive.
“They say this might take six months, but what if we are unable to fish for an entire year?” asked Arvie Anonuevo, 32, who has three children.
For more than two weeks, Anonuevo and other fishers have spent four hours a day cleaning up oil in exchange for a daily wage of 355 pesos (US$6.53) from the Philippine government — a little more than half what they used to make from fishing.
The fishers used trowels and sheets of thin, absorbent material to clean the rocks.
By the following day, more oil had washed up on the shore.
“It’s annoying that the oil keeps coming back the next day no matter how much you clean” the rocks, Anonuevo said.
The government estimates that at least 5,000 hectares of coral reefs, seaweed and mangroves have been affected.
Mangroves can suffocate if oil covers their roots, while corals — breeding grounds for many fish species — can die or struggle to grow and reproduce if exposed.
It would take at least six months to clean up the spill, but the recovery could take years, said Irene Rodriguez, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science Institute.
One of the worst spills in the Philippines was in 2006, when a tanker carrying 2 million liters of oil sank off the central island of Guimaras.
Rodriguez said that one-quarter of the cargo leaked into the sea in that incident.
This time, she said she hopes “it can be contained as soon as possible.”
“If [the oil] is not removed properly and not treated properly ... this will have a significant impact,” Rodriguez said
The Princess Empress was last week found by a Japanese remotely operated underwater vehicle at a depth of nearly 400m.
It had suffered “extensive structural damage” after sinking on Feb. 28, the Philippine Coast Guard said.
Seven out of eight cargo tanks have leaked. Of those, four are already empty.
About 60 percent of the oil has spilled into the sea, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Armando Balilo said.
Rough seas initially delayed the deployment of floating barriers to contain the spill.
Oil has been found as far away as the western island of Palawan, more than 350km from where the tanker sank.
Some oil has also drifted north to the Verde Island Passage, between Mindoro and the Philippines’ main island of Luzon.
The passage is near the top of the Coral Triangle, an area of water spanning down to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor that is called the “Amazon of the Seas” because of its rich marine life.
The Philippine Coast Guard said the vessel’s insurers were looking for experts to patch the leaks and remove the oil.
Several countries, including the US, Japan and South Korea, are helping the Philippines respond to the disaster.
The owner of the tanker said anyone affected by the spill could seek compensation.
Financial help cannot come fast enough for many of the fishers, who would normally turn their hands to picking bananas or coconuts to supplement their incomes.
However, banana trees were damaged by a strong storm last year, and the next coconut harvest is months away.
Pola Mayor Jennifer Cruz is worried about how families would make ends meet once government assistance dries up.
“These are people who live hand-to-mouth,” Cruz said, adding that it could be a year before fishing is allowed to resume.
Anonuevo is already struggling, having used half the money earned from the first week of cleaning rocks to pay off debt from buying food for his family and fuel for his motorbike.
Fellow fisher Marlon Fabrero, 46, said he was considering pulling one of his four children out of school to cut expenses.
“Where would I get the 50 peso daily allowance for each of them?” he asked.
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