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Dozens Killed as Ferry Capsizes Off Philippines Ferry Capsizes Off Philippines, Leaving Dozens Dead
(35 minutes later)
MANILA — A ferry carrying 173 people capsized in strong waves off the coast of the central Philippines on Thursday, killing at least 34, officials said. MANILA — A wooden ferry that was heavily loaded with passengers and cargo sank in stormy weather in the central Philippines on Thursday, killing at least 36 people, officials said.
By Thursday afternoon, 118 passengers had been rescued, said Geraldine Galleposo of the Philippine Coast Guard’s public affairs office. Government and private vessels were searching for 21 others. The vessel, the Kim Nirvana, which was carrying 173 passengers and 16 crew members, capsized in strong waves minutes after it left the port of Ormoc City on Leyte Island around noon en route to the Camotes Islands, about 30 miles to the south, Philippine Coast Guard officials said.
The wooden boat, called Kim Nirvana, was carrying passengers from the town of Ormoc, on the western side of the central Philippine island of Leyte, bound for the small town of Pilar in the nearby Camotes Islands when it encountered high waves just as it left port about noon, said Ms. Galleposo. As of early Thursday evening, 127 people were known to have survived and rescuers were searching for 26 others, said a coast guard spokesman, Armand Balilo. Search efforts by government and private vessels continued into the evening amid choppy waters just off the coast of the port area.
“According to initial reports, there were strong currents prevailing in the area,” she said. Eugene Borinaga, a 38-year-old Ormoc resident, said by telephone that his brother was on board the vessel and was quickly pushed underwater when it capsized. He survived by swimming toward sunlight, Mr. Borinaga said, but his wife died in the accident and their 6-year-old son was missing.
The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands served by an often poorly regulated passenger ferry system, frequently has such accidents. In September, the passenger ferry Maharlika 2 sank off the coast of Leyte, killing three people. “The boat turned too fast and was hit by big waves,” said Mr. Borinaga, recounting what his brother, Jade Borinaga, 30, had told him. “It was overloaded and turned over fast.”
Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, said by telephone that the vessel had the capacity to carry 178 passengers and might have been overloaded. Though the coast guard reported 173 paying passengers on board, he noted that it was common on smaller interisland ferries for passengers to be accepted beyond the limit.
The vessel had outriggers to help stabilize it in the water, but Mr. Gordon said those are typically made of bamboo, which can come loose in rough weather. He said in previous accidents, heavily loaded outrigger ferries capsized when panicked passengers rushed to one side, though he said it was too early to tell what happened in this case.
The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands served by hundreds of ferry operators of differing sizes and standards, has frequent accidents of this nature. In September, the passenger ferry Maharlika 2 sank off the coast of Leyte, killing three people. In 1987, the Doña Paz passenger ferry and an oil tanker collided near Leyte, killing more than 4,000 people in one of the worst civilian maritime disasters in history.
“We are an archipelagic country, and we need an organized system that disallows unsafe vessels and unqualified crew,” Mr. Godon said, “but we never learn from our mistakes.”
Coast guard officials said that although the ferry was heavily laden with bags of rice and construction materials and was going to sea in stormy weather, it was not too dangerous for travel and the vessel had been cleared for departure.
Mary May Andrescio, a clerk contacted by telephone at the Weesam Express ferry office at the Ormoc port, said vessels belonging to her company had made eight trips to nearby Cebu Province on Thursday without incident. She noted that the Kim Nirvana, which was operated by a competitor, was a two-story, top-heavy wooden vessel that might be less stable in rough weather.
Mr. Balilo, the coast guard spokesman, declined to speculate on the cause of the accident. But he said at a news briefing that the captain and some crew members had been rescued and taken into custody pending an investigation.