Ferry disaster kills 31 in Philippines

Life rafts from the sunken ferry St Thomas Aquinas float in front of a cargo ship yesterday whose bow was destroyed after it collided with the ferry the night before off the town of Talisay near the Philippines' second largest city of Cebu. Photo: AFP

Stormy weather forced Philippine rescuers to suspend a search for 171 people missing yesterday after a crowded ferry collided with a cargo ship and quickly sank, with 31 others confirmed dead.
The St Thomas Aquinas ferry was carrying 831 passengers and crew when the vessels smashed into each other late on Friday night in a dangerous choke point near the port of Cebu, the Philippines' second-biggest city, authorities said.
Coastguard and military vessels, as well as local fishermen in their own small boats, frantically worked through the night and the following morning to haul 629 people out of the water alive.
But when bad weather whipped up the ocean mid-afternoon, authorities suspended the search with 171 people still unaccounted for.
A navy spokesman also said powerful currents had earlier prevented divers from assessing all of the sunken ferry to determine how many people had died and were trapped inside.
Fabic said rescuers had not given up hope that there were other survivors who were still drifting at sea.
But Rear Admiral Luis Tuason, vice commandant of the coastguard, said the death toll would almost certainly rise.
"Because of the speed by which it went down, there is a big chance that there are people trapped inside," he said, adding the ferry sank within 10 minutes of the collision.
The cargo ship, Sulpicio Express 7, which had 36 crew members on board, did not sink. Television footage showed its steel bow had caved in on impact but it sailed safely to dock.
Tuason said it appeared one of the vessels had violated rules on which lanes they should use when travelling in and out of the port, without specifying which one.
Authorities blamed human error for the disaster. The captain of the ferry survived, coastguard authorities said.
Ferries are one of the main forms of transport across the archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, particularly for the millions of people too poor to fly.
But sea accidents are common, with poor safety standards and lax enforcement typically to blame.
The world's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster occurred near the capital Manila in 1987 when a ferry laden with Christmas holidaymakers collided with a small oil tanker, killing more than 4,300 people.
In 2008, a huge ferry capsized during a typhoon off the central island of Sibuyan, leaving almost 800 dead.