62 sea vessels cancel trips; hundreds wait in Cebu ports

Passengers bound for Leyte and Bohol wait at the passenger terminal 1 at the Cebu City port for the Philippine Coast Guard announcement to allow or not to allow the ships to sail on Saturday morning. The ships were still not allowed to sail since the effects of tropical storm “Urduja” continued to be felt in the Visayas on Saturday.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

STORM URDUJA’S EFFECTS

Sixty-two passenger vessels remained at port as of 6 p.m. on Saturday, stranding hundreds of passengers in different ports in Cebu as sea trips were canceled because of tropical storm “Urduja.”

These passenger vessels that canceled their trips plied the routes of Ormoc, Bohol, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Cagayan, Masbate, Leyte, Iloilo, Maasin, Siquijor and Lapu-Lapu City, said Rudolph Alain Benolirao, Philippine Coast Guard Cebu (PCG-Cebu) officer-in-charge, in a phone interview on Saturday.

Aside from the passenger vessels, nine cargo vessels also remained at port in northern Cebu ports since Thursday.

When asked to give an estimate of the stranded passengers in Cebu ports especially in the Cebu City port, Benolirao said that they could not give the estimate yet since at least 400 of those passengers were from Metro Cebu, and they asked for a refund and went home instead.

“We have not accounted all the passengers since most of them were just from Metro Cebu. They opted to get the refund and go home,” Benolirao said.
But according to initial data from the PCG-Cebu, at least 150 passengers were stranded in Olango Island in Lapu-Lapu City.

They were supposed to leave the island to the mainland in Lapu-Lapu City.

In Pangil Port in Dumanjug town in southwest Cebu, the PCG-Cebu said that there were 26 passengers stranded in that port, who were heading to Negros Oriental.

As of 5 p.m. yesterday, Benolirao said that the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has lifted the storm warning signal in the Cebu province except for northern Cebu areas.

The weather bureau also issued a gale warning in northern Cebu, northern part of Negros island and Leyte.

“Canceled g’yud tanan ang trips from and to northern Cebu. Including those sad sa southern part like Toledo and Tangil port,” Benolirao said.

(All trips to and from northern Cebu are canceled. These include some trips in the southern part of Cebu like Toledo and Tangil port.)

Most of the trips in Toledo and Tangil are going to Negros provinces.

Benolirao said that Pagasa also raised storm warning in both provinces of Negros island.

“Naay uban mobiyahe (in Negros) but it is the discretion na sa kapitan if kaya ba nila. But if signal number 1 gani covered na g’yud na magamay o madako wa g’yud biyahe,” Benolirao said.

(There are those who would sail but it is the discretion of the ship captain if they would sail. But if the area is covered by storm signal No. 1 then small or big vessels are not allowed to sail.)