39 dead, 80 missing in Cebu ferry disaster

CEBU — Philippine divers plucked more bodies from a sunken passenger ferry yesterday and scrambled to plug an oil leak in the wreckage after a collision with a cargo ship on Friday night.

The accident near the central Philippine port of Cebu has left 39 people dead and 80 others missing.

Cebu Governor Hilario Davide said 751 passengers and crew of the Thomas Aquinas have been rescued after the inter-island ferry collided with the Sulpicio Express Siete, then rapidly sank off the Cebu pier.

There had been 870 people on the ferry, including 754 passengers and 116 crew, Cebu Coast Guard Chief Commodore William Melad said, based on records collated from hospitals, rescuers and the ferry owner. The cargo ship, which had a gaping hole in its bow, had more 30 crew, who were all safe, officials said.

Stunned passengers were forced to jump in the dark into the water after the captain ordered the doomed ferry abandoned.

Coast guard, navy and fishing vessels, backed by helicopters, scoured the choppy seas off Talisay city in Cebu, about 570km south of Manila yesterday, but found no sign of any more survivors.

“We’re still on a rescue mission,” Mr Davide told reporters. “We have not given up on them.”

Relatives flocked to a ticketing office of the ferry owner, 2GO Group, and pasted pictures of their missing loved ones. Others waited quietly and stared blankly at the vast sea from the Talisay pier, where coast guard and navy rescuers have encamped.

“I just want to see my parents,” said Mr Richard Ortiz, who clutched a picture of them. “This is so difficult.”

The Philippine Coast Guard deputy chief, Rear-Admiral Luis Tuason, said some of the missing could still be trapped in the sunken ferry.

Outbound and incoming ships are assigned separate routes in the narrow passage leading to the Cebu pier and an investigation would determine if one of the vessels strayed into the wrong route and sparked the accident, which happened in relatively calm weather, coast guard officials said.

“There was probably a non-observance of rules,” Cdre Melad told a news conference in Cebu yesterday, suggesting human error may have been a factor in the accident.

He stressed, however, that only an investigation would show what had really happened and added that it would start after the search and rescue mission was concluded. AP