More than 200 missing after ferry blaze off Philippines
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-27 14:17

More than 200 people are unaccounted for and at least one person has been confirmed dead after rescuers plucked hundreds of people from a ferry that caught fire off the Philippines capital, officials said.

A Coast Guard ship attempts to put out a fire on a burning ferry off Corregidor island in Manila Bay February 27, 2004. One person was killed when fire raged through the Super Ferry 14 which had 861 passengers on board. The coast guard said 638 people had been confirmed as rescued but that 233 were not yet accounted for. [Reuters]

One person died and 14 others were injured in the incident aboard the SuperFerry 14, coastguard spokesman Lieutenant Armando Balilo said.

Coast guard deputy commandant Rear Admiral Danilo Abinoja said 877 passengers and crew were aboard the ferry when it caught fire and that 667 had been accounted for, all of them picked up by passing vessels and fishing boats.

He said there were at least 210 still missing but expressed the belief that they had been picked up by smaller boats and had simply not reported in yet.

A helicopter drops water onto a burning ferry off Corregidor Island near Manila Bay February 27, 2004. More than 100 of the 899 passengers and crew on board the Philippine luxury ferry were still unaccounted for by press time. [Reuters]

The boats that rescued survivors docked in different areas in Manila and the neighboring province of Cavite, complicating the task of accounting for all aboard.

Abinoja said the fire was caused by "an explosion of undetermined origin," in the engine room but would not speculate what might have caused it.

The fire broke out in the 10,192-ton ferry shortly before 1:00 am (1700 GMT) as it passed Corregidor island on the mouth of Manila Bay, some two hours after leaving the capital for the central Philippines.

A helicopter drops water onto a burning ferry off Corregidor island in Manila Bay February 27, 2004.  [Reuters]

Eight coast guard and naval vessels as well as government helicopters, commercial ships and fishing boats are scouring the area for survivors or casualties.

Some of the injured arrived at the coast guard headquarters on the dockside, their faces almost unrecognizable due to burns. A line of waiting ambulances sped the victims away.

Fires were still smoldering on the Superferry 14 as it was towed by a tugboat to Bataan province, just north of Manila. Firemen and crew aboard the boat were trying to put out the blazes, the coast guard said.

A sea disaster survivor grimaces while being carried by rescuers aboard the Philippine coastguard ship near the coast off Bataan province north of Manila February 27, 2004. [Reuters]

Abinoja said it was possible there were more dead bodies on the burning vessel but insisted "it is too early to say," that the death toll would go up.

Christie Cayetona, one of the rescued passengers, recounted being woken up by a loud explosion from her bunk below deck.

"We rushed toward the main deck," she told Manila radio station DZRH by telephone aboard a rescue vessel. "There was smoke all over."

The ship captain Ceferino Manzo ordered his crew to lower the life rafts and abandon ship nearly two hours later as they struggled to put out the blaze, said Gina Virtusio, spokeswoman for owners Aboitiz Transport.

US Marines taking part in joint annual war games at the nearby coastal town of Ternate provided rubber boats for Philippine Navy frogmen leading the rescue efforts, said Philippine Navy spokesman Captain Gerry Malabanan.

The SuperFerry 14 was built to carry a maximum of 1,672 people, the company said. It had been in service for three years.

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