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Hundreds missing as ferry sinks
Source: Agencies |
September 11, 2011, Sunday
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AN overcrowded ship carrying at least 600 people sank in deep water near one of Tanzania's top tourist destinations yesterday, leaving at least 45 people dead and some 370 more believed missing or dead. Many of the missing are children.
The ferry, M.V. Spice Islanders, was heavily overloaded and some potential passengers had refused to board when it was leaving the mainland port of Dar es Salaam for an island north of the tourist destination of Zanzibar, said survivor Abdullah Saied. It sank in an area with heavy currents between mainland Tanzania and Pemba Island.
"I realized something strange on the movement of the ship. It was like zigzag or dizziness," said 15-year-old Yahya Hussein, who survived by clinging to a plank of wood with three others.
Hussein said there had been many children aboard the ship.
After the ship began to list, water rushed through the main cabin and stopped the engines, said Mwita Massoud, another survivor.
About 230 people had been rescued and 45 bodies had been recovered, said Mohammed Aboud Mohammed, the minister for state in the vice president's office.
Thousands of residents mobbed the docks of Stone Town on Zanzibar, an island near Pemba, waiting for news. One man was screaming that he had lost 25 members of his family, including his sisters, his wife and grandsons.
Many of those present expressed anger that the ship was so overloaded and called on government officials to resign. In the hours after the sinking, the government strongly discouraged journalists from reporting the event and tried to restrict information about the accident.
The ferry, M.V. Spice Islanders, was heavily overloaded and some potential passengers had refused to board when it was leaving the mainland port of Dar es Salaam for an island north of the tourist destination of Zanzibar, said survivor Abdullah Saied. It sank in an area with heavy currents between mainland Tanzania and Pemba Island.
"I realized something strange on the movement of the ship. It was like zigzag or dizziness," said 15-year-old Yahya Hussein, who survived by clinging to a plank of wood with three others.
Hussein said there had been many children aboard the ship.
After the ship began to list, water rushed through the main cabin and stopped the engines, said Mwita Massoud, another survivor.
About 230 people had been rescued and 45 bodies had been recovered, said Mohammed Aboud Mohammed, the minister for state in the vice president's office.
Thousands of residents mobbed the docks of Stone Town on Zanzibar, an island near Pemba, waiting for news. One man was screaming that he had lost 25 members of his family, including his sisters, his wife and grandsons.
Many of those present expressed anger that the ship was so overloaded and called on government officials to resign. In the hours after the sinking, the government strongly discouraged journalists from reporting the event and tried to restrict information about the accident.
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