– Poorly-maintained boats –
The city councillor said the death toll stood at 56 with 142 survivors. His toll was higher than the 45 reported by the coast guard, which was based on the ship’s passenger list, though the guard counted the same number of survivors.
The coast guard earlier said the 33-tonne ship could carry 194 people including 178 passengers and 16 crew, but according to the casualty count of the city council, the ship was carrying at least 198.
“The ship might not be too overloaded in terms of passengers, but imagine the weight of its cargo,” Ebcas said.
Each sack of rice, cement and fertiliser weighs 50 kilos (110 pounds), and 150 sacks would easily add 7,500 kilos to the ship’s load, excluding passengers, he said.
Passengers on the ferry’s regular route from Ormoc to the Camotes islands regularly bring supplies from the city to their remote fishing villages.
Search operations with rescue divers were stopped on Friday before the ship was lifted to port’s berthing area.
Poorly-maintained, loosely-regulated ferries form the backbone of maritime travel in the Philippines, a sprawling archipelago of 100 million people.
Many sea disasters occur during the typhoon season, which starts in June.
Frequent accidents in recent decades have claimed thousands of lives, including the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster in 1987 when the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, leaving more than 4,300 dead.
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