A ferry with more than 340 people onboard sank early yesterday off the southern Philippines, killing at least 18 and leaving 10 still missing, the coast guard said.
Search-and-rescue efforts were expected to continue through the night, Philippine Coast Guard spokeswoman Noemie Cayabyab said, adding that an earlier tally of passengers had been reduced to 344 as some on the ship’s manifest never boarded.
The MV Trisha Kerstin 3 issued a distress signal at about 1:50am, a little over four hours after it departed the Port of Zamboanga City on the southwestern tip of Mindanao, the coast guard said in a statement.
Photo: AFP/ Governor Mujiv Hataman
Video released by the governor of Basilan province showed barefoot survivors being wrapped in blankets and placed on gurneys, while victims of the sinking were carried past in body bags.
The triple-decker vessel sank on nearly the same route where 31 people died in 2023 after a fire aboard the Lady Mary Joy 3 ferry. Both ships were owned by locally based Aleson Shipping Lines.
Sheryl Balondo, a rescuer in Isabela City, one of two municipalities where survivors were being taken, said their office had received more than 100 phone calls from concerned family members.
“There’s a tug in our hearts whenever we pick up a call. Their voices sounded worried,” she said. “What we can only say is that, as of now, we don’t have the final list [of names], because the search-and-retrieval operation is ongoing.”
The 44m ferry went down about 5km east of Baluk-Baluk Island, part of the Basilan province chain of islands off the Zamboanga peninsula.
“Based on the account of some survivors, the waters in the area were rough at the time,” Cayabyab said in a televised interview.
At least two survivors disputed that account, saying the seas had been calm when the ship capsized.
“I hope they investigate this, because we did not have bad weather. Why did it sink when there was no storm?” asked Jun Guro, a lawyer whose interview was posted by the Isabela City government in Basilan.
Basilan emergency responder Ronalyn Perez said earlier that rescuers were struggling to handle the influx of survivors.
“The challenge really is the number of patients that are coming in. We are short-staffed at the moment,” Perez said in an interview, adding that at least 18 had been taken to one local hospital.
Philippine industry regulator the Maritime Industry Authority later said it had “dispatched an investigation team to determine the probable cause or any factors that may have contributed to the incident.”
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