MANILA: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Friday ordered the owners of a ferry and fishing boat involved in a collision that left three dead and 24 still missing to suspend operations of all their boats.
Officials are investigating the accident, but they say it was likely caused by human error.
Search-and-rescue teams continued to scour waters near the mouth of Manila Bay but have found very little trace of the wooden-hulled ferry that sank after Thursday’s pre-dawn collision, said coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo.
He said 46 of the 73 people on board the 13-meter boat MV Catalyn B were rescued. The ferry traveling from Manila to southwest Mindoro Island was carrying passengers returning to their home province for Christmas, when it collided with the 369-ton fishing vessel Anathalia off Cavite province’s Limbones island.
Steel-hulled Anathalia did not sink, and its 22 crewmen were safe. Coast guard officials say many of the ferry passengers were sleeping and had no time to get life vests and may have been trapped in the sunken vessel.
“We suspect that the vessel is lying some 70 meters,” underwater, Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo, the coast guard chief, told ABS-CBN. He said officials suspect human error caused the accident because at the time of the collision the weather was good.
An official investigation will start in three to four days, Tamayo said.
Cabinet Secretary Silvestro Bello III said Arroyo ordered the companies that own the ferry and fishing vessels to suspend operations pending that investigation.
