ILOILO CITY – The Philippine Coast Guard will send today more divers and a ships to Antique as it steps up efforts to locate the missing toxic cargo of a ship that sank off Culasi town last month.

Coast Guard Western Visayas commander Commodore William Melad said it will deploy the BRP Nueva Vizcaya to help in the search operations for the cargo of MV Ocean Papa.

Melad said two teams of divers, or around eight men, will be searching for around 80 drums containing 16 metric tons of toxic chemical toxic substance toluene di-isocyanate.

An oil spill response team will also be sent to the area in case of leakages and spills. A tugboat is already deployed in the area.

The divers will concentrate on an area around 100 meters away from where the ship sank at noon of June 21 near Mararison Island, around 5.6 km from the coast of Culasi. The cargo ship was en route to Iloilo City from Manila when it sank due to string winds and rough seas.

Two of the crew members, including ship captain Carlo Kho, died, two others remain missing, and 24 were rescued.

Melad said because divers can reach only up to a depth of 120 feet, a boat with sonar equipment will scan deeper areas.

The ship, contracted by Ocean Container Lines Inc, the owner of the sunken vessel, will examine the contours of the seabed to locate the missing containers.

“It will use sound waves to check any discrepancy in the topography which could point to the location of the missing drums,” Melad said in a telephone interview. It will also try to trace back the path of the sunken vessel before it sank due to rough seas brought by typhoon “Frank.”

TDI, a main ingredient in the production of flexible polyurethane foam and other polyurethane applications, can cause severe irritation of the skin and eyes and affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and central nervous systems if inhaled or ingested.

The Coast Guard yesterday convened the Special Board of Marine Inquiry to investigate the sinking of MV Ocean Papa. It was attended by representatives of the ship owners.

But the militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) urged lawmakers to also conduct a congressional inquiry on the sinking of MV Ocean Papa

“Like MV Princess of the Stars, MV Ocean Papa is also a star of the hour of this long-running sea tragedy engineered by insatiable greed for super profits, bureaucratic corruption and state neglect,” Pamalakaya national chairman Fernando Hicap said in an e-mailed statement.*NPB

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