Stormy weather forced Philippine rescuers to suspend a search yesterday for 171 people missing after a crowded ferry collided with a cargo ship and quickly sank, with 31 others confirmed dead.
The St Thomas Aquinas ferry was carrying 831 passengers and crew when the vessels smashed into each other late on Friday night in a dangerous choke point near the port of Cebu, the Philippines’ second-biggest city, authorities said.
Coast guard and military vessels, as well as local fishermen in their own small boats, frantically worked through the night and yesterday morning to haul 629 people out of the water alive.
Photo: Reuters
However, when bad weather whipped up the ocean mid-afternoon yesterday, authorities suspended the search with 171 people still unaccounted for.
“It rained hard ... with strong winds and rough seas,” Philippine Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Gregory Fabic told reporters.
He also said powerful currents had earlier prevented divers from assessing all of the sunken ferry to determine how many people had died and were trapped inside.
Fabic said rescuers had not given up hope that there were other survivors who were still drifting at sea.
However, Rear Admiral Luis Tuason, vice commandant of the coast guard, said the death toll would almost certainly rise from the 31 bodies that had been retrieved.
“Because of the speed by which it went down, there is a big chance that there are people trapped inside,” he said, adding the ferry sank within 10 minutes of the collision.
Pope Francis was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life,” a Vatican statement said, adding he would pray for all affected in the predominantly Catholic country.
One survivor, Lolita Gonzaga, 57, recalled the terror of falling from the top deck of the ship to the bottom level when the collision occurred, then the horror of escaping the black waters with her 62-year-old husband.
“When we were rescued we had to share the rubber boat with a dead woman. She was just lying there,” Gonzaga told reporters from a hospital bed in Cebu.
Fisherman Mario Chavez told reporters he was one of the first people to reach passengers after the ferry sank in calm waters between 2km and 3km from shore.
“I plucked out 10 people from the sea last night. It was pitch black and I only had a small flashlight. They were bobbing in the water and screaming for help,” he said.
The cargo ship, Sulpicio Express 7, which had 36 crew on board, did not sink. Television footage showed its steel bow had caved in on impact but it sailed safely to dock.
Tuason said it appeared one of the vessels had violated rules on which lanes they should use when travelling in and out of the port, without specifying which one.
The strait leading into the Cebu port is a well-known danger zone, said the enforcement office chief of the government’s Maritime Industry Authority, Arnie Santiago.
“It is a narrow passage. Many ships have had minor accidents there in the past, but nothing this major,” Santiago told reporters.
Industry authority head Maximo Mejia later told reporters that both vessels had previously passed safety inspections and were seaworthy, indicating human error was to blame.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique