KARACHI, 5 November 2005 — At least 70 people are feared drowned after an overloaded motorboat taking villagers to a funeral capsized in the Arabian Sea off southern Pakistan yesterday, government and navy officials said.

Only 10 survived when the vessel ferrying 80 people from Jangisar town in Thatta district sank on the way to a nearby village, said Sindh Province government spokesman Salahuddin Haider.

“Seventy people including women and children are now feared drowned,” Haider told news agencies, raising the toll from an earlier estimate of 60. “Ten have survived and at least 13 bodies have been recovered so far.”

An inquiry into why the boat was overloaded and whether the authorities had failed to stop the accident had been ordered by Sindh Governor Ishratul Ebad, Haider said.

“This is a great tragedy, especially as it happened on Eid Al-Fitr holiday,” added the spokesman.

Navy divers were still at the scene working to rescue any remaining survivors and recover the bodies of the victims, Pakistani Navy spokesman Commander Muhammad Salman told reporters.

“They were going from Jangisar to Ali Muhammad village to offer condolences for the death of a relative when a tide hit their boat and it capsized,” Salman said.

People living on the Indus River Delta rely on boats for travel between isolated villages and towns, sailing out from the coast and into the Arabian Sea.

Many of the vessels are poorly maintained and are often overcrowded due to a shortage of boats, particularly on Eid and weekends.

Sami Memon, a spokesman for the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, a nongovernmental organization, said up to 75 people were feared dead after the vessel capsized at around 6:30 a.m.

He said witnesses had told group that the boat was badly overcrowded before it set off from Jangisar, which is near the area’s main town of Keti Bandar, with up to 90 people on board.

“They were on their way when a tide hit the boat and it capsized and all the people sunk in the sea,” Memon added.

“They were going to another town on the other side of the delta to condole some dead in the family,” he said.

In July at least 14 people drowned when a rescue boat evacuating flood-affected people hit an electricity pole and capsized in Rojhan Mazari, a village in central Pakistan.

— Additional input from AFP