At least 21 people were killed and 26 others reported missing after a passenger ferry carrying more than 200 people sank off the coast of western Myanmar, the police said yesterday. The Aung Takon went down late on Friday after leaving the town of Kyaukphyu on its way to Sittwe in western Rakhine State.
“We have got 21 dead bodies, two men and 19 women. About 26 passengers are still missing,” said a police officer in Sittwe who requested anonymity.
He added that 167 people had been rescued, and that no foreigners were believed to be on board the ship.
Three navy boats and a host of private vessels were sent to scour the area after news emerged that the ferry had gone down shortly after 8:30pm.
“We suspect that the boat sank because it was overloaded with goods,” the police officer said, adding that rescuers were still searching for survivors.
Many people living along the impoverished nation’s lengthy coastline and flood-prone river systems rely heavily on poorly maintained ferries for transportation. Ferry accidents are not uncommon. Ten people were killed in 2010 when a ferry capsized in the Irrawaddy Delta region, while 38 perished in 2008 when a ship went down in the Yway River.
In recent years, Rakhine State has been the departure point for thousands of desperate Muslim Rohingya, who crowd onto small and dangerously overcrowded boats to escape persecution, often aiming for Thailand and Malaysia. Communal violence between Buddhists and Rohingyas swept through the region in 2012 leaving at least 200 dead. About 140,000 people, mainly Rohingya, are trapped in miserable displacement camps around Sittwe after losing their homes in the unrest.
Referred to by the government as “Bengali,” they are largely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even if many can trace their ancestry in the nation back for generations.
The Arakan Project, a rights group monitoring departures, in October last year estimated that about 100,000 Rohingya are thought to have fled by boat since 2012.
Many of those vessels are barely seaworthy and some are known to have never reached their destination.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was