Another passenger ship ran aground off an island-barangay in Tubigon on Thursday dawn in what was the second of the same incident in the vicinity in less than two months.

According to Tubigon Mayor William Richard Jao, the Lite Shipping vessel which carried 47 passengers was on its way to the town from Cebu when it hit the seabed near Ubay Island.

The incident was immediately reported to the mayor who in turn alerted the Coast Guard in Tubigon.

Jao said that the vessel’s captain was unable to notice the shallow area due to the darkness of the channel traversed by the ship.

Authorities however have reported that no one was injured during the incident while the vessel had already been pulled back to shore.

Following the accident, and other similar incidents in the past year, Jao urged the Coast Guard to set up lighthouses to illuminate waters in the area.

Jao noted that there are areas off Tubigon that have lighthouses but these were not lit.

He said that boats travelling to Cebu pass by four islands including Ubay, Pangapasan, Bucaboc and Bagong Banwa wherein shallow waters abound, particularly in low tide.

Most of the previous incidents wherein vessels ran aground in the area involved larger boats and not fastcrafts, added Jao.

In December, Fastcat, a large roll-on, roll-off fastcraft of the Archipelago Shipping Company which carried more than a hundred passengers ran aground in the vicinity.

All passengers were rescued and no one was injured during the incident. (Allen Doydora)