MANILA: Philippine authorities believe they have found the location of a tanker that sank off a central province last week, the environment ministry said on Monday, amid a race to assess the extent of an oil spill and contain further environmental damage.
The tanker, the MT Princess Empress, is thought to be lying at about 1,200 feet (366 meters) below sea level, off Oriental Mindoro province, though the information still needed to be verified, the ministry said in a statement.
A remotely operated autonomous vehicle would be deployed to help determine the exact location of the tanker, it said.
Authorities want to know how much oil is inside and how to pump the remainder out and stop any leaks, experts said.
The vessel was carrying about 800,000 liters (211,338 gallons) of industrial fuel oil when it suffered engine trouble on Feb. 28 in rough seas, according to the coast guard.
It was not immediately clear what caused the Philippine-flagged vessel to sink but all 20 crew members were rescued before it went down.
Spilled oil had been detected on the shore and in coastal waters near more than 60 villages close to the site where the vessel is thought to have sunk, the disaster agency said.
About 36,000 hectares (88,958 acres) of coral reef, mangroves and sea-grass were potentially in danger of being affected by the oil slick, according to marine scientists at the University of the Philippines.
Oriental Mindoro Governor Humerlito Dolor vowed to seek compensation for the damage and other expenses.
“Let me assure you, the damage done directly on the environment and on our people’s livelihood will be given corresponding compensation depending on what is stipulated in the compensation guidelines,” he told a briefing.
The governor was speaking at a briefing together with representatives of the tanker owner, RDC Reield Marine Services Inc, and contractors hired for the cleanup operations.
The tanker’s owner has contracted local agencies, Harbor Star Shipping Services and Malayan Towage and Salvage Corp., for the cleanup.
“The situation is very difficult... because of the weather. If sea conditions are bad, it is also unsafe for our contractors to work,” Rodrigo Bella, vice president of Harbor Star, told the media briefing.
The two contractors would shoulder all expenses initially, including paying residents hired for cleanup jobs, Dolor said.
The national government has also pledged to hire locals under a scheme to assist those whose livelihood has been affected by temporary fishing and swimming bans in affected areas.
Philippines to deploy underwater vehicle to pinpoint location of stricken tanker
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Philippines to deploy underwater vehicle to pinpoint location of stricken tanker
- MT Princess Empress was carrying about 800,000 liters of industrial fuel oil when it suffered engine trouble on Feb. 28 in rough seas
Near record number of small boat migrants reach UK in 2025
- The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday
LONDON: The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday.
The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May.
With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.
Home Office data as of midday on Wednesday showed a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government.
The Home Office is due to confirm the final figure for 2025 later Thursday.
Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” when he was in power.
Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too “stark” and “binary” and lacked sufficient context “for exactly how challenging” the goal was.
Adopting his own “smash the gangs” slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people smuggling networks running the crossings but has so far had no more success than his predecessor.
Reform has led Starmer’s Labour Party by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of 2025.
In a New Year message, Farage predicted that if Reform got things “right” at the forthcoming local elections “we will go on and win the general election” due in 2029 at the latest.
Without addressing the migrant issue directly, he added: “We will then absolutely have a chance of fundamentally changing the whole system of government in Britain.”
In his own New Year message, Starmer insisted his government would “defeat the decline and division offered by others.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, urged people not to let “politics of grievance tell you that we’re destined to stay the same.”
- Protests -
The small boat figures come after Home Secretary Mahmood in November said irregular migration was “tearing our country apart.”
In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings “shameful” and said Mahmood’s “sweeping reforms” would remove the incentives driving the arrivals.
A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said.
“Our landmark one-in one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France,” he said.
The past year has seen multiple protests in UK towns over the housing of migrants in hotels.
Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the largest-ever far-right protests in Britain, organized by activist Tommy Robinson.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November.
Labour is currently taking inspiration from Denmark’s coalition government — led by the center-left Social Democrats — which has implemented some of the strictest migration policies in Europe.
Senior British officials recently visited the Scandinavian country, where successful asylum claims are at a 40-year low.
But the government’s plans will likely face opposition from Labour’s more left-wing lawmakers, fearing that the party is losing voters to progressive alternatives such as the Greens.
