Salvage operations on the half-sunken cargo ship M/V Ever Transport III off the coast of Dumaguete City, in Negros Oriental, were stalled when a leak was discovered in its compartment.
Lt. Commander Agapito Bibat, chief of the Coast Guard station in Dumaguete, said the Steel Ray Salvaging Services Inc. has already deployed divers to search for and plug the hole or holes that the other salvaging company might have missed in previous oil and fuel retrieval operations.
Steel Ray also started pumping out water from the cargo vessel to refloat it, before towing it to a shipyard in Cebu, Bibat added.
The salvaging company has to work double time as they applied only for a one-month extension with the Maritime Industry Authority, he said.
The vessel ran aground during the onslaught of tropical storm Sendong last December, and has, so far, remained at its original site with no signs of oil spill after a salvage company retrieved bunker and diesel fuel from it.*JFP
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