PCG: Underwater survey of sunken MT Princess Empress complete

The PCG announces the completion of underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) operations that were part of mitigating the spread of the oil spill in Oriental Mindoro province.

Contributed undated photo taken in Calapan City amid oil spill in Oriental Mindoro province.

CITY OF CALAPAN — The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Monday announced the completion of underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) operations that were part of mitigating the spread of the oil spill in Oriental Mindoro province.

In a statement, the PCG-Incident Management Team-Oriental Mindoro said the ROV operations were carried out by Fukada Salvage and Marine Works and the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving.

On March 21, the Japanese Dynamic Positioning Vessel (DPV) Shin Nichi Maru deployed the ROV Hakuyo to conduct an underwater survey on the structural damage of the sunken MT oil tanker.

A total of 24 sources of leakage were found in the vessel during the ROV operations, the PCG said.

A source told the Inquirer that only one source of leakage has yet to be capped or bagged.

The PCG also said the fingerprinting results of the collected oil samples from the vicinity of the submerged vessel showed that these matched the samples collected from the shorelines of Pola town in Oriental Mindoro and the loading station in SL Harbor Bulk Terminal in Limay, Bataan. INQ

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