Search for sunken cargo ship, 9 crews ongoing
Search and rescue teams have failed to locate at least nine missing crew members of a cargo ship believed to have sank off the coasts of northern Panay on Friday.
Hampered by huge waves and strong winds, Coast Guard personnel, volunteers and local government units are on the lookout for survivors from the M/V Edago Enterprise which went missing Friday afternoon.
Commodore Eduardo Fabricante, deputy district commander of the Coast Guard in Western Visayas, said they are focusing their search on the Western side of northern Antique including the islands of Caluya and Semirara where the last location of the vessel was monitored. Neighboring islands have also been alerted for the missing crew.
"We have mobilized all our stations and have asked the help of volunteers and local government units but we have no reported sightings of the crew and the ship," Fabricante said in a telephone interview.
Fabricante said the area has deep waters and strong currents which would make the search more difficult.
The Coast Guard said the exact number of crew is still being determined with reports varying from 11 to 13.
The owner of the vessel, Edago Lighterage Philippines, reported the cargo ship as missing after it lost contact with the vessel after 1 p.m. last Friday. The vessel's captain Reymundo Seanoria had reported that it was navigating rough seas off the coast of Pandan town in northern Antique.
On Saturday at around 10:45 a.m., an Indonesian vessel picked out from waters two crew members around 7 miles northwest of Boracay Island in Aklan.
The crew members, identified as Lamberto Aranjuez and Revy June Nankil, were brought to the port of Tabaco in Albay were the Indonesian vessel docked.
The 248.2- gross tonnage ship was carrying salt and left the port of Occidental Mindoro around 2 p.m. on May 14 bound for Zamboanga, according to a Coast Guard report.
Meanwhile, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported that twelve people were killed across Northern and Central Luzon after Tropical Storm Cosme (international codename Halong) battered the country over the weekend.
Anthony Golez, deputy chief of the NDCC, said the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are expected to surge as reports from the field come in.
As of 6 a.m. Monday, a total of 6,700 families were displaced by the storm, he said.
The fatalities in Pangasinan were identified as Lourdes Soriano and Cesario Basi from Bugallon; George Pascua from San Fabian; Miguel Poserio, Randyl Poserio and Rodyl Poserio from Dagupan City; Carlito Maganes from Mangaldan; Marcos Quinto from Urdaneta; Elpidio Maoile from Infanta; Nicadio Ferrer from Lingayen; and Rogelio Austria from San Carlos City.
The number of casualties in Pangasinan may go up as two children who were reported missing at the height of the onslaught still remained unaccounted for, officials said
The children are feared to have drowned in Dagupan.
More than half of Pangasinan's towns, cities and municipalities have been destroyed by the storm. A substation of National Transmission Corporation (Transco) and electricity posts were severely damaged, cutting power supply in the entire province.
Damage to crops was initially estimated at P168 million. (with additional reports from ABS-CBN News website)