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| Southeast Asia | |
| Navy ship removed from Philippine reef | |
| 2013-04-01 | |
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 NationsÂ’ cultural arm, is located in the Tubbataha National Marine Park in the Sulu Sea, about 644 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Manila. The doomed shipÂ’s 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 shipÂ’s removal was done carefully and itÂ’s 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 AmericaÂ’s 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 |
| #9 And then there's the case of Google's missing island. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-04-01 23:28 |
| #8 Tom-Tom tried to get me to exit from a main highway into a shopping center that I know has no back exit (just woods), supposedly in order to get me home. Luckily it was in town and knew my way around - I was just trying to get used to having the GPS talking to me. I chose to stay on the main highway. (If I hadn't been so tired, I would have followed the instructions just out of idle curiosity.) While GPS is convenient, I prefer to look at a map before leaving the house, so I'll know if something doesn't seem right with the GPS instructions. There have been several instances when it tried to take me 6 ways around Robin Hood's barn. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2013-04-01 21:44 |
| #7 Garmin tried to tell me to 'turn right, now,' while I was driving along a cliffside road near Mt. St. Helens. I chose do disobey. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-04-01 21:06 |
| #6 ...hmmm, someone using Apple Maps? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-04-01 19:28 |
| #5 If I remember correctly, the navy charts for this region were incorrect. The skipper, probably took the heat for this, but the chartman in the basement of some big building in Norfolk who is the responsible party. |
| Posted by: rammer 2013-04-01 18:45 |
| #4 I thought I read somewhere that the GPS system had something like a 7nm error and that the grounding occurred before the next scheduled sunsighting by the Navigator? If that was so, does the CO get something of a pass? |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2013-04-01 15:40 |
| #3 The doomed ship's parts will be transported to a Navy facility in Sasebo, Japan, to determine which ones can be reused and which will be junked Including the commanding officer, wardroom, and crew. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2013-04-01 15:27 |
| #2 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. Delivered to someone's account in the Cayman Islands cause their Cyprus account is frozen at the moment. What? So you expect the money will magically make all the coral come back? That it'll be spent on anything in the Park? This is the Philippines which is like a large Detroit, but with real natural resources. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-04-01 08:42 |
| #1 Needed that vessel, yes. "Workers in the southwestern Philippines have removed" |
| Posted by: newc 2013-04-01 02:28 |