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Rescue divers said they found many bodies on Tuesday inside a ferry
that sank with more than 850 passengers and crew on board,
confirming the worst fears of desperate relatives.
Anxious and angry family members had been
clinging to hope their loved ones might still be found alive inside
the doomed MV Princess of the Stars, which capsized and went down on
Saturday when it got caught in the path of Typhoon Frank.
Ferry owner Sulpicio Lines on Monday said
Princess was carrying 862 passengers and crew when it sank.
But with blame flying over how the 23,000-ton
ship was allowed to set sail with the storm looming, shaken rescue
divers said they had discovered the worst when they finally worked
their way into the submerged ship.
“There are still many dead inside,” said one
diver, who declined to give his name, coming back to his Coast Guard
rescue boat from the wreck off the central island of Sibuyan.
He added that a body was found on the bridge,
wearing the uniform of a crew—and still clutching the ship’s
radio in his hand.
“We saw 15 bodies trapped in one section of
the ship,” said another Coast Guard diver, Lt. Commander Inocencio
Rosario.
“The bodies are floating inside,” he added.
Rosario noted that most of the dead were not wearing life jackets.
“Two men were on the bridge, wearing the
Sulpicio Lines uniform. One was holding the radio. He must have been
an officer,” he said.
Passage through the ship was hampered by fallen
furniture, equipment and broken glass, Rosario added. He said they
did not have enough underwater flashlights or batteries to dive for
long.
The vessel is sitting upside down on a coral
reef off San Fernando, Sibuyan Island, with most of the bottom of
its hull protruding from the water.
At least three bodies were removed from the ship
and placed in cadaver bags aboard a coast guard vessel, said an
Agence France-Presse reporter at the scene.
Rescue effort
Civil defense chief Anthony Golez said 57
passengers, some of whom made it onto lifeboats, survived the
sinking – one of the worst maritime disasters in the country’s
history.
But many passengers reportedly had little time
to react when the vessel, trapped when the typhoon suddenly changed
path, began tilting and then quickly capsized.
The ship reportedly developed engine
trouble while trying to make it to safety.
Vice President Noli de Castro, who inspected the
recovery operations on Tuesday, said they still hoped that survivors
might be found in an air pocket inside the ship.
But he warned that rescue efforts would have to
proceed slowly to avoid fuel leaking. Oil spill booms were seen
being set up around the sunken vessel.
A US Navy supply ship and a maritime patrol
plane have joined the search, and the local military said the
Americans had deployed an unmanned aerial vehicle to hunt for
survivors.
There have been reports from local officials of
dozens of survivors being found on nearby islands but Coast Guard
officials said they had yet to confirm those accounts.
Bodies trapped inside
In Manila, from where the boat set sail on
Friday night, Navy spokesman Lt. Col. Colonel Edgardo Arevalo
confirmed that many bodies were trapped inside the vessel but said
divers could not yet give more details.
“It was too dark inside to tell how many were
children or elderly, but they [rescue divers] did say they [bodies]
were mostly floating and they were apparently trapped inside,” he
said.
Arevalo added that the waters were still quite
rough, making it difficult to enter and exit the sunken vessel.
“What complicates our problem is how to
extricate the bodies. One of the ways they [divers] are thinking
about is to weigh them [bodies] down so they can take them out from
the bottom of the ship. Another option is to cut the hull,” he
said.
Deadly record
The tip of the overturned hull is all that
remains above water after the incident, the fourth disaster for the
ferry company since 1987 – including a collision that year which
left around 4,000 dead. Sulpicio Lines was not held responsible for
the deaths of thousands of passengers in the three incidents.
The government slapped an immediate ban on
Sulpicio’s vessels from leaving port on Monday.
But the company is one of the largest ferry
operators in the Philippines, where people are heavily dependent on
ferries to get around the country’s more than 7,000 islands, and
said on Monday it was still selling tickets.
“We are at a loss as to what really
happened,” Sulpicio Vice President Sally Buaron said. She added
that the captain, Florenio Marino, sent a distress call moments
before giving the order to abandon ship.
Golez said he hopes the Americans would have
more sophisticated equipment that could help locate more people.
“As long as there’s small hope that there is
an indication that people are still in the waters, we will continue
to search,” he added.
Another ship, the transport vessel Lake Paoay,
went down in the same area during the storm on Saturday, leaving
three dead and 17 missing.
Spokesman Commodore Armand Balilo said the Coast
Guard wanted to make sure it did not mix the survivors or casualties
from different vessels when accounting for those in the ferry.
Company hurting
Sen. Richard Gordon, a lawyer and the Red
Cross country chief, said Sulpicio Lines was not legally at fault
since the Coast Guard had allowed the Princess of the Stars to set
sail.
“It becomes a judgment call by the captain,”
Gordon added.
President Gloria Arroyo on Monday ordered the
Coast Guard to review sailing guidelines, especially those relating
to typhoons.
Sulpicio Lines said it has postponed acquisition
of additional vessels as a result of the latest disaster. Target was
the end of the year.
Owned by the Go family, it is one of the largest
inter-island shipping companies in the Philippines, with a fleet of
16 passenger and cargo vessels, 16 cargo and container vessels,
three tugboats and five barges – a total tonnage of over 127,100.
The shipping firm calls the ports nationwide
including Cagayan, Davao, Cotobato, Iloilo, Ormoc, Surigao,
Zamboanga, Tagbilaran, Masbate, Manila, Dumaguete and Cebu.
Buaron said Princess’ sinking definitely
“has an effect [on our operations and revenues]” this year.
In 2006, Sulpicio Lines posted a net loss of
P228.33 million from the P226.46 million in 2007.
Probe to begin
Rear Adm. Ramon Liwag, Coast Guard
Vice-Commandant also on Tuesday said the Board of Marine Inquiry
will start its probe of the sinking by sending summonses to
officials of Sulpicio Lines and the company’s maritime safety
officers. He also heads the board.
“The three main points of the investigation
will be whether the ship was seaworthy when it left port, the
qualification of its crew and the weather condition at the time the
ship left,” Liwag added.
Balilo told a press briefing on Tuesday
afternoon that the number of survivors from the Princess’ sinking
rose to 48, from 32 on Monday. He said 67 had died.
According to him, search and rescue operations
have been expanded to Marinduque and Mindoro provinces.
The latest disaster calls for ferry operators in
the Philippines to upgrade their aging fleets, Transportation
Secretary Leandro Mendoza said also on Tuesday.
“We really have to modernize, our average age
of the ships is about 28 years old,” he told a news conference.
Princess of the Stars, a 181-meter vessel, was
built in 1988.
-- AFP With Anthony Vargas, Rhaydz B. Barcia and Darwin G.
Amojelar and Xinhua
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