Port and city authorities are preventing the departure of a Vietnamese cargo vessel that ran aground at the Albay Gulf on Monday and damaged about 2,000 square meters of coral reef within the city’s waters. Benigno Redito, chief of the Integrated Resource Coastal Management (IRCM) unit of the city government, said the vessel, which has a crew of 21 Vietnamese, was ordered to stay put after the destruction of the coral reef along the Pulang Buya, or Demson Reef, was discovered. The vessel, MV Ocean 3 owned by Hoang Anh Shipping, had just departed from the Legazpi City port after unloading sacks of imported rice from Vietnam when the ship’s hull plowed through the coral reef in Pulang Buya, some 5 nautical miles (9.26 kilometers) from the port, around 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. on June 15.

Jaucian, M. B. (2015, June 19). 2,000 sq m of coral reef destroyed. Philippine Daily Inquirer, p. A14.