Survivors look for their missing relatives from lists of survivors after a ferry disaster
CEBU, Philippines –
According to Reuters worsening weather and sea conditions on Saturday forced the Philippines to suspend a search for survivors of a ferry disaster that killed at least 32 people and left 170 missing, authorities said.
The ferry sank on Friday after a collision just outside the central port of Cebu with a cargo vessel owned by a company involved in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster nearly 30 years ago.
Divers will resume searching early on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya told a news conference in Manila, after heavy rain brought by a typhoon and low pressure had reduced visibility at sea almost to zero.
“Diving operations stopped because of weather conditions,” Abaya said, adding that 661 of the 831 passengers and crew on the ferry had been accounted for. With 32 dead and 629 rescued, there are 170 missing. Just 17 of the dead have been identified.
“But we’ve got information that some bodies have been recovered, and we expect the number of missing to decrease, and we expect the casualties to increase.”
Many of the survivors were sick from swallowing oil and seawater, disaster officials said.
Scores, sometimes hundreds, of people die each year in ferry accidents in the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,100 islands with a notoriously poor record for maritime safety. Overcrowding is common, and many of the vessels are in bad condition.
The 40-year-old ferry was approaching Cebu late in the evening when it was struck by the departing cargo vessel, the Sulpicio Express 7, leaving two huge holes in the latter’s bow. The ferry sank in minutes, about a kilometer off Cebu.
Small planes and helicopters also scoured the waters and coastal areas of Cebu island for survivors, officials said.
Divers found four bodies outside the sunken ferry hours before the search was halted, said Commander Noel Escalana, a naval operations officer.
“During the dive, they saw bodies from the windows,” he told reporters, saying the divers did not attempt to retrieve them. “It’s dangerous to enter the ship…Because they need special equipment and extra oxygen tanks.”
Escalana added that rescuers had no idea how many people were trapped inside the ship, lying on a seabed around 150 feet below sea level.
Fourteen bodies had been found in the town of Talisay, south of Cebu City, said Imelda Sabillano, another local official.
“We don’t know where these bodies came from, but we already have brought to a local morgue 31 bodies for identification,” she said, adding that morgue officials awaited the arrival of the 14 bodies to add them to the toll from the disaster.
Officials said a recount at the morgue showed 32 bodies awaited autopsy.
The Sulpicio Express 7 is owned by unlisted firm Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp, formerly known as Sulpicio Lines Inc, which owned the MV Dona Paz ferry.
That vessel collided with a tanker in the Sibuyan Sea in December 1987, killing 4,375 on the ferry and 11 of the tanker’s 13-man crew.
The owners of the ferry involved in Friday’s accident said it was carrying 723 passengers, 118 crew and 104 20-ft containers. It had an authorized capacity of 1,010 passengers and crew and 160 containers.
The captains of the two ships are alive but have yet to be questioned, said Rear Admiral Luis Tuason, the coast guard operations chief.
Abaya said initial information showed the cargo ship loaded with container vans bound for Davao on the southern island of Mindanao hit the ferry’s “vulnerable part” on the right side.
“We felt the cargo ship hit us and minutes later we noticed our ship was listing,” passenger Aldrin Raman told reporters. “I grabbed a life vest and jumped overboard. I saw many passengers doing the same.”
One of the crew said the ferry sank within 10 minutes.
“The collision left a gaping hole in the ferry and water started rushing in, so the captain ordered (us to) abandon ship,” the crew member said. Most of the passengers were already wearing life jackets before the ship sank, he added.
Another passenger, Jerwin Agudong, said several people had been trapped. “It seems some were not able to get out. We saw dead bodies on the side,” he said.
Fishermen on shore said they saw flares.
“It was very dark and we could hear a lot of people shouting, asking for help,” said George Palmero, a 35-year-old fisherman who helped pull 10 survivors from the water.
According to Afp 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.
The Philippines has reached a deal with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group to share wealth generated from Mindanao’s natural resources.
According to BBC news The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will receive 75% of the gold, copper and other resources mined from the southern island.
It follows lengthy negotiations aimed at ending a 40-year conflict that has cost an estimated 120,000 lives.
But a rebel group not at the talks has continued attacks on the national army.
Two soldiers and five guerrillas died in an ambush by the violent break-away faction Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) on Saturday.
Disarming rebels
Sunday’s agreement was reached after six days of talks in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.
It adds details to an outline agreement – the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) – signed last October in which the Philippine government agreed to give Muslims on Mindanao more autonomy in the southern region where Muslims represent a majority in the mainly Catholic nation.
Framework deal – Key points
Creates new, larger autonomous region
Gradual decommissioning of MILF forces
Guarantees democratic and human rights
Pledges development and fair sharing of natural wealth
Expansion of Sharia courts for Muslim residents
“The Parties believe that the Annex, which forms part of the FAB, will provide sufficient guidance for the crafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law’s provisions on wealth sharing and revenue generation for the Bangsamoro as envisioned by the FAB,” said the government and MILF representatives in a joint statement.
Under the terms of the FAB:
The new autonomous region would be named Bangsamoro, after the Moros – or Moors, which was how the Spanish used to refer to the followers of Islam – living there
Bangsamoro’s leaders would have more political and economic powers
Law enforcement would be transferred from the army to the Bangsamoro police in a “phased and gradual manner”
The needs of the region’s poverty-stricken communities would be addressed
The deal makes it more likely the two sides will reach a final peace agreement to end a decades-old conflict, says BBC Asia analyst Michael Bristow.
But other aspects of a final peace agreement still need to be worked out, such as how to disarm the rebels and exactly how much autonomy the will get, he adds.
As well as the 75%-25% agreement on sharing the wealth from natural resources, the two sides agreed to split earnings from energy resources equally.
The government in Manila says a failure to bring about a binding agreement could give other groups a reason to continue fighting.
The government’s chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer told AFP a final peace deal could be signed after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends later this month.
The MILF, created after a split with another rebel group in 1977, originally wanted an independent Muslim state, but dropped this demand.
The Philippines has faced separatist movements for decades in Mindanao, where the MILF is based, and in Jolo, home to the radical Islamist Abu Sayyaf group, which is reputedly linked to al-Qaeda.
Communist rebels have also waged a guerrilla conflict over parts of the country from 1969.
