Personnel from the Philippine Army’s 53rd Engineering Brigade and the local government of Medellin already identified on Thursday morning the exact location of the World War II (WWII) army tank that fell into the Dagusungan River.
Municipal Planning and Development Officer Giles Anthony Villamor said the search team managed to locate the tank near Barangay Poblacion’s side of the Dagunsungan bridge after an hour’s digging.
They started digging at 5 a.m. and called off the day’s operation at 6:30 a.m. when the water level started to rise.
Based on the initial data that they collected, Villamor said they found that the submerged tank had similar features with that of U.S. M5A1 Stuart Light tank.
Villamor said that they already saw the submerged tank’s upper frame that used to hold its metal turret after digging at least a meter deep into the murky river.
“But we cannot yet extract the tank because we have to first establish its exact position to make sure that this will not be damaged during the process,” he said.
Villamor said they will continue to excavate the tank’s immediate surrounding early on Friday morning when there is low tide in the area to complete their sketch of its exact position.
He said that the tank is totally submerged in the river’s murky waters when there is high tide.