MANILA: A huge oil spill shut down parts of the Philippine capital’s vital fishing industry yesterday, jeopardising the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people living along Manila Bay’s diesel-coated coast.
Dead fish floated on the water and some residents fell ill from the fumes, as authorities said an estimated 500,000 litres of oil cast a slick across 20-kilometres of the coastline.
“Many of our young and elderly residents are getting sick,” Marcos Solis, the captain of a fishing village near the worst of the oil spill, said.
“The price of fish and shellfish has also collapsed. Even those who fish far out to sea are affected because the fish smell the oil and swim away.”
Authorities said the slick was caused by either a leak at an oil terminal on the bay or a ship that had unloaded diesel there.
Coastguard marine environmental protection chief Commodore Joel Garcia told reporters the slick stretched seaward about 15 kilometres from the shore, covering an area of 300 square kilometres.
The area described by the coastguard covers about 15 percent of the bay, the country’s busiest body of water in a region where about 30 million people live, according to government data.
Locals said they feared for the immediate future of the bay’s vibrant fish and shellfish industry, which feeds millions of people in the capital and surrounding areas.
“Fish and shellfish are floating up dead. It could be months before the shellfish industry is revived unless the water is cleaned up soon,” Jose Ricafrente, mayor of Rosario fishing town, said.
He said 40,000 people dependent on the fishing and shellfish industry in the bay were temporarily without jobs.
AFP
