WORKERS siphon off bunker fuel and manually collect debris on the coast of Estancia town, Iloilo province. NESTOR P. BURGOS JR./INQUIRER VISAYAS
ILOILO CITY—About 2,000 residents of Estancia town in Iloilo who were evacuated due to a typhoon-triggered oil spill may now go home, according to the Department of Health.
Residents of Barangay Botongon in Estancia may return to their homes as test results showed that the level of the toxic substance benzene in the air was .009 parts per million, lower than the tolerable level of .5 ppm, said Dr. Marlyn Convocar, DOH regional director for Western Visayas.
The tests were conducted by the DOH and Environmental and Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources from Tuesday until Wednesday, she said.
Convocar said they have issued the recommendation to provincial and municipal officials to allow the residents to go home.
Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor said the evacuees could go home but those whose houses were destroyed could still remain at the Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College-West Campus.
Estancia Mayor Rene Cordero said he was still waiting for an official copy of the DOH-EMB test results and recommendation for the evacuees to go home but they were allowed to start returning to the village early Friday morning.
The residents of Botongon were evacuated to the state college on Nov. 23 after tests of ambient air showed that the benzene level in the village had reached 16.9 parts per million or 30 times more than the allowable level.
The increase in toxicity level was due to the spilling of at least 200,000 liters of bunker fuel from the National Power Corp.’s Power Barge 103.
Strong winds and huge waves brought by Supertyphoon Yolanda broke the 32-megawattt barge from its moorings and slammed it onto the coast of Barangay Botongon.
Storage tanks of the barge were believed to have been punctured, triggering the oil spill.
An area with a radius of 20 meters from the oil spill will remain restricted, and monitoring of air quality will still be conducted, Convocar said.
Workers involved in the cleanup operations will be allowed to work only if they have the prescribed protective equipment, she said.
The removal of remaining bunker fuel from the barge was completed over the weekend. The contaminated water and debris will also be transferred to a treatment facility in Bulacan, according to Karl Ignatius Young, president of the Kuan Yu Global Technologies Inc., which was contracted by the government to clean up the oil spill.
Young said the refloating and towing of the barge off the coast of Estancia has been targeted by January 9 at the latest.