Fuel oil has started leaking from the tanker that sank off the coast of the Philippines

An environmental catastrophe is feared. Part of the 1.4 million liter cargo of oil carried by an oil tanker that sank in Manila Bay has started to leak, the Philippine Coast Guard announced on Saturday, July 27. MT Terra Novawhich was flying the Philippine flag, sank in heavy weather on Thursday morning, killing one crew member and threatening to cause one of the worst oil spills in the Southeast Asian archipelago.

Divers inspecting the ship’s hull found a “minimal leak” at the valves, said Coast Guard spokesman Rear Admiral Armando Balilo, adding that the situation was not yet “not alarming”. “It’s just a small volume that’s flowing”he assured, specifying that “the tanks are intact.”

The oil slick, which has more than tripled in size, now stretches 12 to 14 kilometres across the bay, on which thousands of fishermen and tourism operators depend for their livelihoods. Floating barriers have been deployed in case the “worst case scenario” would occur, namely a leak at the level of the tank containing the industrial fuel oil, according to the authorities.