{"id":220853,"date":"2016-02-15T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T20:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=220853"},"modified":"2016-02-15T06:00:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T20:00:13","slug":"unexploded-ordnance-found-at-saipan-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/unexploded-ordnance-found-at-saipan-port\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexploded ordnance found at Saipan port"},"content":{"rendered":"
The digging site of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s pipeline project at Port of Saipan, where an unexploded World War II bomb was found on Friday. The news of the bomb\u2019s discovery circulated in the social media, causing many motorists to resort to panic buying of gas until Saturday night. (Ferdie De La Torre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Port of Saipan was closed temporarily after unexploded ordnance was found last Friday.<\/p>\n

The ordnance was from World War II and after discovery, the Commonwealth Ports Authority and the U.S. Coast Guard closed off certain areas of the port. <\/p>\n

It initially affected delivery of imports including fuel\u2014causing panic for some residents to line up for gas and fill up their tanks as early as 2pm on Friday. <\/p>\n

However, the affected operations were also resolved and the port was back to normal Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re back to normal, we\u2019re open, but we still have a 100 feet safety zone from the ordnance,\u201d CPA acting executive director Chris Tenorio told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

Tenorio said the ordnance was found by a contractor, which was digging for a pipeline for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were digging they discovered the ordnance,\u201d Tenorio said.<\/p>\n

This was confirmed by CUC acting executive director Gary Camacho.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contractor was trenching for the pipeline project pipeline and identified the ordnance. Everything was ceased at that point,\u201d Camacho told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

Tenorio wasn\u2019t able to release information yet on what kind of ordnance was found as they are waiting for the team from Guam to arrive.<\/p>\n

A report was sent to Sector Guam from the Marine Safety Detachment Saipan also on Friday and a Unified Command (UC) has been assembled which is led by CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a press release.<\/p>\n

The UC coordinated the deployment of a specialized U.S Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Detachment from Guam, which is scheduled to arrive on tomorrow to \u201cconduct further assessment and recommend the way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenorio said more information on the ordnance will be released today and they will also inform the public regarding the removal. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to remove it and we have to announce it to the public so that they will be aware,\u201d Tenorio said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Port of Saipan was closed temporarily after unexploded ordnance was found last Friday. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":220857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[328,260,38,6362],"class_list":["post-220853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-coast-guard","tag-commonwealth-utilities-corp","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-sector-guam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}