Rough seas on yesterday forced Philippines rescuers to suspend the search for dozens of people still missing one day after a ferry disaster claimed at least 38 lives.
The Kim Nirvana, believed to be carrying 189 passengers and crew, capsized on Thursday shortly after setting sail from Ormoc City for its regular run to the Camotes island group, about an hour’s sailing away.
Distraught relatives waited at the Ormoc port on Friday for news of the missing, after a sleepless nighttime vigil, while others checked hospitals and morgues for their loved ones.
Photo: AFP
At the port, 10-year-old Gilbert de la Cruz kept his eyes fixed on the partially submerged wooden hull where his mother, eight-year-old sister and one-year-old brother were believed trapped.
“I’m very sad because I don’t know if they are still alive,” said the boy, who survived the accident by clinging to empty water drums that kept him afloat until the coast guard rescued him.
“I am never riding a boat again,” he told reporters, as he was comforted by his aunt whose eyes were swollen from crying.
The authorities have said they are puzzled as to how the accident happened in relatively calm waters, but discounted speculation that the ferry was overloaded.
Survivors have recounted how the 33-tonne vessel was backing out of the port when it suddenly overturned, giving them no chance to put on life jackets.
Philippine Coast Guard and navy rubber dinghies circled the hull yesterday, but no survivors have been found since Thursday afternoon. Local officials have said that 125 people have been rescued, leaving 26 unaccounted for.
Divers stopped their search as the water became turbulent, and the seabed grew murky due to bad weather from Tropical Storm Linfa, said the police commander overseeing the operation, Chief Superintendent Asher Dolina.
Linfa was set to brush past the northern Philippines later yesterday.
“The waves are big and it’s dangerous for our divers. The water is also silted, almost zero visibility,” Dolina told reporters.
Asked if rescuers still expected to find survivors, he said: “We really can’t say. Miracles can happen.”
Dolina said the search would resume when the weather improved.
The state weather service issued a gale alert for the central Philippines early yesterday, warning of turbulent seas being churned up by the storm.
Waves up to 4.5m high could overturn boats that try to leave the ports in these conditions, weather forecaster Gladys Saludes told reporters.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS