ILOILO CITY, Philippines—The siphoning of remaining bunker fuel inside a typhoon-disabled power barge in Estancia town in Iloilo province was completed on Saturday, according to a joint team supervising the cleanup of the oil spill in the municipality.
Commodore Athelo Ybañez, Western Visayas Coast Guard commander, said the report of the joint team would be verified through visual inspection during low tide.
The joint team is composed of the National Power Corp. (Napocor), Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), Coast Guard and Kuan Yu Global Technologies, the private contractor hired to clean up the oil spill and remove the barge.
Ybañez said at least 510,000 liters of bunker fuel had been siphoned off from Power Barge 103.
Bunker fuel spilled into the water has also been siphoned off, he added.
Strong winds and huge waves brought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” slammed the Napocor-operated PB 103 into the rocky coastline of Barangay (village) Botongon in Estancia triggering an oil spill.
Officials have evacuated more than 2,000 residents since Nov. 23 due to the high level of air toxicity in the village. The evacuees whose houses were also damaged or destroyed by the supertyphoon have been staying at Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College-West Campus in Estancia.
The evacuees would be allowed to return home only when health officials have declared the village safe, provincial and municipal officials had said.
The siphoned oil from the barge was transferred to MT Obama, a vessel rented by Kuan Yu from Fuel Zones Corp., a Philippine company.
Ybañez said the private contractor would still have to refloat the barge and tow it to a dry-docking facility. Contaminated debris would also be brought to a recycling facility.
The cleanup of the coastline is expected to be completed by Jan. 9, according to Ybañez, citing a timeline agreed upon in a meeting of the joint supervising team.
The oil spill has contaminated mangroves in the neighboring town of Batad. Oil sheen, or the thin layer of oil on the water surface, has also been detected in other towns.
Residents and officials have demanded the fast-tracking of the removal of the barge and the cleanup of the oil spill, which has taken more than five weeks since the supertyphoon struck on Nov. 8.
The Iloilo provincial government has threatened to file charges against the Kuan Yu, PSALM and Napocor for the delay in the cleanup operations.
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