Manila rushes aid to victims of mining firm leak
Manila rushes aid to victims of mining firm leak
MANILA (Reuter): Helicopters yesterday ferried food and medicine to hundreds of families isolated by torrents of copper mill waste which leaked into a river on the central Philippine island of Marinduque.
As residents demanded compensation and angry lawmakers called for an inquiry, a spokesman for Marcopper Mining Corp, 40 percent owned by Canada's Placer Dome, said the company would not turn away from its responsibilities.
No casualties have been reported, officials said.
Five hamlets in Boac municipality on Marinduque island, 170 kilometers southeast of Manila, have been cut off from the town center since Sunday after the sludge of mine wastes spilled into Boac river, isolating more than 1,500 villagers.
Waste materials were flowing into the river at the rate of 5- 10 cubic meters per second, company officials said.
The social welfare department had earlier said more than 3,000 people were affected. But acting Marinduque provincial governor Teodro Rejano said a survey showed only about half that number of people were affected.
Rejano said three military helicopters were ferrying food and medicine to the stranded inhabitants whose only access to the town center was by crossing the river.
Orlando Mercado, chairman of the Senate committee on defense and security, demanded a probe into the cause of the "flashflood of muddy water containing toxic mine wastes."
A spokesman for Marcopper said the waste was not toxic but the copper ore mill might have to be shut down for a month.
"Definitely, it's non-toxic," Ted Gabor, vice-president for human resources and legal affairs, said by telephone from the mine site on Marinduque. "We will not compromise any life in the province of Marinduque."
"It's very visible that we have caused something. We will not turn back from our social, political and individual responsibility."
The mill has a capacity of 30,000 tons of ore per day.
President Fidel Ramos declared a state of calamity in the area and ordered an investigation of the accident.
The government is extremely sensitive to threats to public safety after last week's fire at a Manila disco, which killed 159 people, and a sinking last month which killed 51.
Gabor said the leak might have been caused by an earthquake two weeks ago which weakened the structure of the drainage holding the wastes.
"We have not yet closed the breach in the tunnel. Our engineers are still studying how to do it," he said.
The Philippine Stock Exchange suspended trading in Marcopper shares yesterday as it awaited details of the accident from the company. The suspension was part of normal procedure to prevent speculation in the shares, an official said.
Analysts said the shutdown of Marcopper's main mine would affect its profit for 1996. In 1995, Marcopper's net profit slid to 80.234 million pesos (US$3.10 million) from 190.372 million pesos 1994 after typhoons flooded the mine and a strike shut it down for 49 days last year.