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US Coast Guard and air assets will assist PH in responding to the oil leak

The large oil spill in Mindoro is still being cleaned up, and the US Coast Guard (USCG) and some of its air assets will help.

According to a press release issued by the Presidential Communications Office on Sunday, Senior Undersecretary Carlito Galvez Jr., Officer-in-Charge of the Department of National Defense, has already informed President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. that the USCG and the US Air Force’s largest strategic airlift will be arriving in the nation in the coming days.

“We are anticipating the arrival of the complete US Coast Guard force in order to provide our disaster response activities with additional technical support. “Another C-5 is expected to arrive, even though one US C-17 with equipment (60K loader) already arrived this morning and is currently at Subic Air Base,” Galvez stated.

Along with Ariel Nepomuceno, undersecretary of the Office of Civil Defense, Admiral Artemio Abu, chief of the Philippine Coast Guard, and other members of the Armed Forces and local government, Galvez, who is also the chair of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, conducted an aerial inspection of the affected areas on Saturday morning.

“We will use these resources right now and incorporate them into our response efforts. We also keep a careful eye on the remotely operated vehicle’s (ROV) operations in case there are any important updates and to learn more about how much oil has leaked, the official continued.

In addition, Galvez noted that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States has significantly aided in cleanup efforts by providing quick environmental assessments of the affected areas, identifying priority areas at risk of environmental damage, and determining the necessity of ecosystem restoration.

In order to support assessment efforts, Galvez claimed that NOAA “provides support for scientific modeling to estimate the trajectory of the oil spill and satellite imagery.”

According to Galvez, the Japanese ROV discovered that the oil tanker M/T Princess Empress “suffered extensive structural damage after sinking.”

He claimed there was no apparent fuel leak originating from the damaged vessel, citing research done by the Japanese crew. There were oil leaks from each of the eight compartments. (tanks).

The amount of oil still present inside the compartments through the ballast tanks cannot yet be calculated. It is also unknown how much oil will leak from the source.

Galvez also mentioned that the response initiatives of various government agencies and coordination of all stakeholders have improved and been more encouraging thus far in the impacted areas of the Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan) and Western Visayas regions.

The beach cleanup activities have yielded a total of 10,206 liters of oil waste and oily water and 72,643 kilograms of oil-contaminated debris.

The citizens of the areas affected by the oil leak have already received help totaling more than PHP95 million from the Marcos administration and non-governmental organizations.

When M/T Princess Empress fell off Naujan town on February 28, it was carrying 800,000 gallons of industrial fuel oil.

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