Nuku, August 08: At least 87 people are now feared dead in this week’s Tonga ferry disaster, police said Saturday, describing the sinking as a “tragedy of huge proportions” for the tiny Pacific island nation.
The number on board the Princess Ashika, which sank just before midnight on Wednesday, has been revised upwards to 141 following interviews with survivors. The original manifest showed only 79 on board.
Fifty-four passengers and crew were rescued, two bodies have been recovered and 85 people are unaccounted for, police said, without explaining the increase in the number of survivors after previously putting the number at 53.
“This marine disaster is a tragedy of huge proportions for this country,” police commander Chris Kelley said, adding the toll could go higher.
“The news is not good. We now have the names of 141 people who were on the Ashika, as a result of statements taken from survivors… and that number may be more,” Kelley said
“The list of those on board has grown from 79 to 141 in the last 24 hours.”
Teams of Australian and New Zealand navy divers, who arrived in Tonga overnight, were to survey the area where the Ashika went down before attempting to recover bodies trapped inside.
The 34-year-old vessel is located in 35 metres (115 feet) of water but is near a shelf with a 150-metre drop.
“The first part of our operation is going to be reconnaissance, so that’s going to involve getting out there with our autonomous underwater vehicle,” New Zealand commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Andrew McMillan told Radio New Zealand.
“It allows us to survey a largish area of ocean. We’re hoping to find the vessel and get a more exact idea of how deep it actually is.”
A New Zealand Air Force Orion is also continuing to patrol overhead, extending the area it covers to take into account drift and tide in an ongoing search for more survivors or bodies.
Tongan Transport Minster Paul Karalus said a marine investigator from New Zealand would arrive on Saturday to begin an investigation into the tragedy.
Karalus denied claims by angry Tongans that the ageing ferry, bought last month as a stop-gap measure until a new vessel arrives in 2011, was unseaworthy.
The Princess Ashika was travelling from the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa to Ha’afeva, in the Nomuka Islands group, when it sank moments after issuing a mayday call.
Survivors have said it went down quickly and people below decks had no time to get out.
–Agencies