British in Philippines Help Clean up Oil Spill

British experts have arrived in the central Philippines to help assess the damage from the country's worst-ever oil spill.

A spokeswoman for the company that chartered the tanker Solar I, which sank eight days ago off the island of Guimaras with 500,000 gallons of oil on board, said two pollution experts had arrived in the zone on Thursday.  "As of now there are two representatives of the International Tanker Oil Pollution Federation there," Petron Corp. spokeswoman Virginia Ruivivar said in Manila.  "They are assessing what needs to be done.  After that we would know what kind of assistance we would be asking from the other countries," she added.

The spill has already affected more than 125 miles of coastline, covering beaches and mangroves in black sludge and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of poor fishermen living in villages along the shore.  The tanker is lying in 3,000 feet of water off Guimaras.  The Philippine coast guard say only one of the ship's 10 tanks has ruptured, spewing some 50,000 gallons of oil into the sea.  The Philippine government has requested help from the Indonesian, Japanese and US governments for help to refloat the vessel but as of early Friday, nothing had been forthcoming.  The coast guard has said the main priority now is to try and refloat the tanker before more tanks rupture due to the water pressure.  "As long as that ship remains on the ocean floor, we have a problem," said regional coast guard commander Harold Harder.

On Guimaras, small groups of residents were busy shovelling the sludge off the blackened beaches in and around Nueva Valencia.  "No one wants to buy our fish anymore. They tell us it's full of poison," said Hanito Gonzales, 45, as he shovelled oil-coated sand into sacks along with about 20 neighbors in the coastal village of Sumirib.  "Fish have also become scarce at sea," he told AFP, adding that as a result, 96 households in Sumirib face the very real possibility of going hungry.