Manila Bay is facing a potential environmental disaster as the Philippine Coast Guard races to contain an oil spill from the capsized MT Terra Nova. The tanker, which sank off the coast of Manila on Thursday due to Typhoon Gaemi, was carrying 1.4 million liters (369,840 gallons) of industrial fuel oil. The situation is critical, with the oil slick expanding rapidly, now covering an area of 12 to 14 kilometers (7.5 to 8.7 miles) across the bay.<\/p>\n
The MT Terra Nova capsized under severe weather conditions, resulting in the death of one crew member and the rescue of 16 others. As divers conducted inspections on Saturday, they reported a minimal leak from the ship\u2019s valves, though it was not deemed immediately alarming.<\/p>\n
To address the environmental damage, oil containment booms have been set up, and coastguard vessels are applying dispersants to the oil slick. The operation to recover the oil is expected to take up to seven days, given the vessel\u2019s resting depth of 34 meters (111 feet) on the sea floor.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups have expressed urgent concerns about the spill\u2019s potential consequences. Greenpeace Philippines has labeled the sunken tanker a \u201cticking time bomb,\u201d warning of severe impacts on marine life and coastal communities if the situation is not swiftly addressed.<\/p>\n
In 2023, an oil spill from a tanker near Mindoro Island took months to clean up, while another spill in 2006 off Guimaras Island resulted in extensive damage to marine reserves and fishing grounds.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The MT Terra Nova\u2019s oil spill in Manila Bay has rapidly expanded, covering 12\u201314 kilometers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411,"featured_media":24608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[13905,13908,13910,13909,13903,13907,13902,13904,13901,13906],"class_list":["post-24594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philippines","tag-coastguardresponse","tag-dispersants","tag-environmental-disaster","tag-greenpeacephilippines","tag-manilabay","tag-marinepollution","tag-mtterranova","tag-oilcontainment","tag-philippinesoilspill","tag-typhoongaemi"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/411"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}