MANILA // At least 36 people were killed on Thursday when a ferry loaded with nearly 200 people capsized off a central Philippine port.
There are still 26 people missing after the 33-tonne, wooden-hulled Kim Nirvana tipped over about half an hour after setting sail from Ormoc city at midday, the coast guard said.
Rescuers pulled more than 100 survivors from the sea and continued to scour the waters about a kilometre from the coast where the accident happened, said Ciriaco Tolibao, an official from the city’s disaster risk reduction and management office.
“Some clung on to the hull of the overturned vessel, while some were rescued while swimming toward the shore,” Mr Tolibao said.
Back in Ormoc city, a distraught male survivor wept openly as crew members brought him ashore. Others, still shaken, recounted their ordeal to rescue officials.
A row of soaked survivors squatted on the pier nearby while awaiting medical attention, as emergency workers placed the injured onto stretchers.
The vessel was carrying 173 passengers and 16 crew members, and was licensed to carry up to 200 people, Mr Tolibao said.
Philippine coast guard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo said 36 bodies had been recovered while 127 people were rescued.
Authorities were investigating how the accident had happened in relatively calm waters. Initial speculation that it was overloaded has been discounted.
“There wasn’t any storm or any gale. We’re trying to find out [why it happened],” Mr Balilo said.
He said the boat’s outriggers apparently broke in the accident, and added it was possible the crew had committed a navigational error.
Ormoc and the rest of Leyte island was ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan which struck in November 2013, leaving more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines.
A flash flood also killed around 6,000 people in Ormoc in one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in 1991.
Poorly maintained, loosely regulated ferries are the backbone of maritime travel in the sprawling archipelago. This has led to frequent accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years, including the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster in 1987, when the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, killing more than 4,300 people.
* Agence France-Presse
