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Navy ship removed from Philippine reef
A crane lifted the 250-ton stern of the dismantled USS Guardian on Saturday from the reef, where it accidentally got stuck Jan. 17, officials said. The reef, designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural arm, is located in the Tubbataha National Marine Park in the Sulu Sea, about 644 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Manila. The doomed ships parts will be transported to a Navy facility in Sasebo, Japan, to determine which ones can be reused and which will be junked, Philippine coast guard Commodore Enrico Efren Evangelista said. Workers were cleaning debris at the site, where American and Filipino experts this week will begin a final assessment of the reef damage, to be paid for by Washington. An initial estimate showed about 4,000 square meters (4,780 square yards) of coral reef was damaged by the ship grounding, according to Tubbataha Reef park superintendent Angelique Songco. The ships removal was done carefully and its unlikely the initial damage estimate will change significantly, Songco said. She said the fine would be about 24,000 pesos ($600) per square meter, so the U.S. could be facing a fine of more than $2 million. Songco said her agency did not have plans to pursue charges against U.S. authorities over the incident. The Navy and the U.S. ambassador to Manila, Harry K. Thomas, have both apologized for the grounding and promised to cooperate with Americas longtime Asian ally. A separate U.S. government investigation on the cause of the grounding has not yet been completed, the embassy said. The Guardian was en route to Indonesia after making a rest and refueling stop in Subic Bay, a former American naval base west of Manila, when it ran aground before dawn Jan. 17. It strayed more than 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) into an offshore area off-limits to navigation before hitting the reef, Songco said. Posted by: Steve White 2013-04-01 |
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