THE BASEMENT floor of the 22-story West Tower condominium, where an oil leak had been detected for almost three weeks now, remained flooded with wastewater Thursday afternoon.

An ultimatum was set earlier by Makati City officials for building owners to either siphon off the substance in the area by Thursday or face closure.

Makati fire marshal Supt. Samuel Tadeo said that despite the daily operations of a contractor hired by the owners of the building, they still failed to clear the basement of wastewater, making it difficult to trace the source of the gas leak.

Tadeo told Inquirer in a phone interview that the wastewater had gone down by as much as 1.2 meters in the past five days.

A waste contractor had drained some 100,000 liters of substance from the basement, according to a monitoring chart maintained by fire fighters at a command center near the building.

The contractor worked between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. on Wednesday.

Measuring about 2.5 to three meters high, the basement still contained around three million liters of wastewater, according to Tadeo?s estimate.

On Monday, city engineer Nelson Morales cleared the First Philippine Industrial Corp. (FPIC) from any liability in the oil leak, saying that the company consistently passed safety audits conducted by the government in light of the incident.

The FPIC operates a pipeline system that transports oil products from refineries in Batangas province to depots in Manila.

The wastewater in the basement has been the main stumbling block in efforts to trace the source of the leak which was discovered on July 12.

Reached for comment, Vincent Clado, property manager of West Tower, said he could not yet say what would happen next.

?The board is still convening to determine the next course of action,? he said.