Tanzania ferry disaster toll passes 200 fatalities

The death toll from a crowded ferry capsizing in Lake Victoria rose sharply to 207 Saturday, a Tanzanian minister said, as rescue workers found a lucky survivor. 

Public radio quoted the transport minister as updating the number of dead from 170 earlier in the day.

Joseph Mkundi, a lawmaker for the Ukerewe district, told AFP there were 41 known survivors among the passengers of the MV Nyerere -- a ferry built to carry 100 people, according to state media.

It capsized on Thursday close to the pier on Ukara Island.

Although hopes were fading of finding any more survivors by day three of the search effort, workers rescued an engineer who had managed to locate a pocket of air in the vessel.

According to Mkundi, the engineer had shut himself into a "special room".

Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday ordered the arrest of ferry management.

Witnesses told AFP the ferry sank when passengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. Others blamed the captain, saying he had made a brusque maneuver.

In a speech broadcast on TBC 1 public television, Magufuli said "it appears clear that the ferry was overloaded."

He added: "negligence has cost us so many lives... children, mothers, students, old people.

"I ordered the arrest of all those involved in the management of the ferry. The arrests have already begun," he added.

- National mourning -

The president declared four days of national mourning and said the government would cover the funeral expenses of the victims.

State television cited witnesses reporting that more than 200 people had boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on the larger Ukerewe Island. It was market day, which usually sees the vessel packed with people and goods.

"I have not heard from either my father or my younger brother who were on the ferry. They had gone to the market in Bugolora to buy a school uniform and other supplies for the new school term," said Domina Maua, among those seeking information about loved ones.

Sebastian John, a teacher, said such tragedies had become part of life for those living on the lake.

"Since my birth, people have gone to their deaths on this lake, but what are we to do? We did not choose to be born here, we have nowhere to go," he said.

- Overloading and 'negligence' -

Tanzania's Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which is responsible for ferry services, said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard the MV Nyerere.

The ageing vessel, whose hull and propellers were all that remained visible after it overturned, was also carrying cargo, including sacks of maize, bananas and cement, when it capsized about 50 meters from Ukara dock.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but overloading is frequently to blame for such incidents.

The country's opposition has accused the government of "negligence".

"We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence," said John Mnyika, deputy secretary general of Chadema, the main opposition party. 

Mnyika said overloading was "another failure of the authorities" and criticized "inadequate relief efforts as well as delays" in the rescue operation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Uganda and Kenya offered their condolences, while Pope Francis in a statement expressed "the greatest solidarity with those who have been bereaved".

With a surface area of 70,000 square kilometers, oval-shaped Lake Victoria is roughly the size of Ireland and is shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

It is not uncommon for ferries to capsize in the massive lake, and the number of fatalities is often high due to a shortage of life jackets and the fact that many people in the region cannot swim.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

S. Korea ferry captain arrested, divers spot bodies

JINDO - Investigators on Saturday arrested the captain accused of abandoning the South Korean ferry that capsized three days ago with 476 people on board, as divers finally accessed the submerged vessel and spotted bodies inside.

Lee Joon-Seok and two of his crew were taken into police custody in the early hours of the morning, charged with negligence and failing to secure the safety of passengers in violation of maritime law.

The 69-year-old captain has been severely criticised for abandoning his ship as it sank Wednesday morning off the southwest coast while hundreds remained trapped on board, most of them children on a high school holiday trip.

Twenty-nine people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, but 273 are still missing.

As the arrests were being made, dive teams who had spent two days vainly battling powerful currents and near zero visibility, finally penetrated the passenger decks of the 6,825-tonne Sewol.

"Civilian divers spotted three bodies through a window," said Choi Sang-Hwan, deputy director of the national coastguard.

"They attempted to get in and retrieve them by cracking the window, but it was too difficult," he said in a briefing to relatives of the missing.

Many of the more than 500 divers working on the rescue teams are civilian volunteers.

Nets will be placed around the submerged ferry to prevent any bodies drifting away during the eventual recovery process, Choi said, while adding that the rescue teams had not given up hope of finding survivors trapped in air pockets.

Captain Lee was arraigned along with the two officers in charge of the bridge at the time.

Dressed in dark raincoats with their hoods pulled up, the three kept their heads bowed as they were paraded before TV cameras in a police station.

Questioned by TV reporters as to why passengers had been ordered not to move for more than 40 minutes after the ship first foundered, Lee said it was a safety measure.

Captain explains evacuation delay

"At the time a rescue ship had not arrived. There were also no fishing boats around for rescues, or other ships to help," Lee said.

"The currents were very strong and the water was cold at that time in the area.

"I thought that passengers would be swept far away and fall into trouble if they evacuated thoughtlessly," he added.

Experts have suggested many more people might have escaped if they had moved to reach evacuation points before the ship listed sharply and water started flooding in.

Lee also confirmed he was not the helm when the ship ran into trouble, and was returning to the bridge from his cabin.

The hundreds of relatives camped out in a gymnasium on Jindo island near the scene of the disaster -- most of the them parents of high school students -- have sharply criticised the pace of the rescue operation, accusing officials of incompetence and indifference.

Only 174 were rescued when the ferry sank and no new survivors have been found since Wednesday.

Nam Sung-Won, whose 17-year-old nephew was among the missing, said the clock was fast running down on the hope that some may have survived.

"We don't have much time. Many people here believe this is the last possible day for finding trapped passengers alive.

'No hope after today'

"After today, hope will be gone," Nam said.

The unfolding tragedy was compounded by the apparent suicide Friday of the students' high school vice principal, Kang Min-Kyu, who was seemingly overcome by guilt at having survived the sinking.

Kang, 52, was found hanging from a tree near the Jindo gymnasium. Local media said he had left a note, saying: "Surviving alone is too painful... I take full responsibility."

More than 350 of those on board were students from Kang's Danwon High School in Ansan city just south of Seoul.

Initial questioning of the captain has focused on what actually caused the ferry to sink.

Tracking data from the Maritime Ministry showed the vessel made a sharp turn just before sending its first distress signal.

Some experts believe a tight turn could have dislodged the heavy cargo manifest -- including more than 150 vehicles -- and destabilised the vessel, causing it to list heavily and then capsize.

But others suggested the turn might have been caused by a collision with a rock or other submerged object.

Chief prosecutor Lee Seong-Yoon stressed there was "no limit" to the range of the investigation.

"We will make sure... those responsible are sternly held accountable," Lee said.

Three giant, floating cranes are now at the rescue site, but coastguard officials stressed they would not begin lifting the multi-deck ferry until they were sure there were no survivors inside.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Captain of capsized S.Korean ferry faces criminal investigation

JINDO, South Korea - The captain of the South Korean ferry that capsized off the southwest coast was facing a criminal investigation on Thursday, an official said, amid unconfirmed reports that he was one of the first people to jump to safety as the vessel began sinking.

The Sewol ferry was carrying 475 passengers and crew when it capsized on Wednesday. The government has said nine people were found dead and 179 had been rescued, leaving about 290 people, most of them teenaged school children, missing and possibly trapped in the vessel.

The captain, identified as Lee Joon-seok, 69, is being questioned by the coastguard and is the subject of a criminal investigation, a coastguard official said.

Media reports said he was facing the possibility of charges of negligence leading to death and also for violating a law that stipulates the conduct of shipping crew. Coastguard officials could not be reached for further details.

"It's still an early stage and we're questioning the circumstances," said one coastguard official in the town of Mokpo, which is the centre of the investigation.

Television showed the captain sitting hunched over, wearing a hooded jacket, at the coastguard centre in Mokpo on Thursday.

"I apologise to the passengers and victims and families," he said, declining to answer questions about what happened and why he abandoned the ship when he did.

Coastguard investigators have not given reporters access to the captain since then.

Lee was filling in for the regular captain, who was on leave, but had been at sea for 40 years and had travelled on the route before, ferry operator Chonghaejin said.

No survivor has been able to specify exactly when the captain left the vessel although several said he left early. At the time, other witnesses said, the crew was asking passengers to remain calm and stay where they were.

"MAD AS HELL"

One survivor told a South Korean television station: "I was one of the first ones to jump on a coastguard boat and there were several others, and I heard from one of the rescuers that the captain was on the boat before me."

Other survivors also said the captain was one of the first to be rescued. Coastguard officials declined to comment when asked for confirmation.

The ferry operator declined to comment on the captain's action, saying it was under investigation by the coastguard.

Families of the missing were outraged at the reports of the captain being one of the first to jump ship.

"It's despicable and I'm mad as hell, but this is really not the time to talk blame, it's the rescue of these kids that comes first," said Lee Yong-ki, father of one of the missing children.

About half of the 30 crew members have been rescued.

It took the ferry about two hours to sink and most of the survivors were those who made it out on to the deck and then waited for help, holding on to the rails, or jumped into the sea to be picked up by rescue boats.

The crew was appealing to the passengers to remain where they were when it started sinking.

"It is outrageous that they didn't tell people to get out," said Choi Min-ji, one of the high school students who survived.

"They kept saying 'stay put' even when the water was coming in. I almost got trapped too and barely came out alive. If they did it (told people to get out) there would have been fewer casualties."

Another survivor, Lee Tae-ju, 68, said some people believed the order to stay put sounded reasonable at the time.

"The ship was listing sharply, so I would have tried to tell people to stay put if I were them, just to keep calm. What can you do? In any case, the ship was listing so sharply it would have been almost impossible to get out." --additional reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-Min Park in Seoul and Jungmin Jang in Mokpo; writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Ferry disaster is fifth tragedy for Sulpicio

MANILA - A company whose cargo ship was involved in the Philippines' latest ferry disaster confirmed Saturday its vessels were involved in four other tragedies that claimed more than 5,000 lives between them.

The first of those accidents occurred in 1987 when the firm's Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, leaving more than 4,300 dead in the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp. chief executive and president Jordan Go told AFP his family's company owned the Dona Paz as well as the ships involved in the four other accidents.

But he insisted the company's track record had nothing to do with the accident on Friday night, when his firm's cargo vessel collided with a ferry that quickly sank, leaving 31 dead and 172 missing.

"It's immaterial to what happened right now," Go told AFP when asked to comment about the firm's history of accidents.

In Friday's incident, the Sulpicio Express 7 cargo ship was trying to leave the central city of Cebu's port via a narrow channel while the St Thomas Aquinas ferry was trying to sail in the opposite direction, authorities said.

After the vessels collided, the ferry sank within 10 minutes while the cargo vessel was able to reach dock with its steel bow crushed in.

Philippine Span Asia was previously named Sulpicio Lines Inc.

In October 1988, Sulpicio's Dona Marilyn ferry sank off Leyte island amid a typhoon, killing more than 250 people. In 1988, another 150 were killed when the firm's Princess of the Orient sank in a port near Manila in similarly bad weather.

It also owned the MV Princess of the Stars, which set sail during a storm in 2008 and sank. Only about 50 of the 850 people on board survived.

Arnie Santiago, head of the enforcement division of industry regulator Maritime Industry Authority, said Sulpicio Lines was suspended after the 2008 disaster, then re-emerged with its new name of Philippines Span Asia.

Go said changing the company name in 2009 was unrelated to the previous accidents, but did not explain what the reasons were.

He said his company would do whatever it could to help investigators in the latest accident, while pointing out it was too early to assign blame.

"We respect the government fact-finding bodies and the authorities. We will cooperate with them, we trust their judgement. We do not want to pre-empt their fact-finding," he said.

Go is a the grandson of Sulpicio Go, a Chinese Filipino businessman who founded the firm in 1973.

It cornered a major chunk of the domestic shipping industry in the 1980s by taking advantage of a law that reserved domestic routes for Filipinos.

Currently, its fleet consists of two passenger ferries and 10 cargo vessels that operate nationwide, Go said.

Authorities have not said who was to blame for Friday's accident.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com