About 50 people were believed to have drowned off Myanmar when a ferry sank in bad weather, government officials said on Saturday. However, residents said they believed more people on the overcrowded vessel had died.
The boat had 209 people on board when it ran into high seas on Saturday morning on a voyage from the coastal town of Taunggok to Sittwe, capital of the west coast state of Rakhine, officials said.
"Twenty bodies have been found while 27 are still missing. Rescue workers are looking for them," Pyay Nyein, said a senior official from the Inland Water Transport Department.
A Ministry of Transport official said the boat was swamped by huge waves and 167 people had been saved, though the missing were believed to be dead.
Residents in Taunggok, from where the boat embarked, said they believed the toll was higher as the ferry would have been crowded with many unregistered passengers. They identified the ferry as the government-owned Aung Tagun-3,
"Normally, the number of tickets sold is not reliable when it comes to the number of passengers. That's very common," said a Taunggok merchant who declined to be identified.
"So the number of missing must be many more than 27. We understand the chances of finding them in this weather are very slim."
Other ferry disasters in recent history
>Bangladesh, February 2015 : A ferry with upto 140 passengers capsized after being hit by a cargo vessel in the Padma River, about 40 kilometers northwest of Dhaka. At least 70 people were believed to have drowned in the accident.
>Italy, December 2014 : A ferry disaster in the Adriatic Sea claimed eight lives as the ferry caught fire and was burnt out. Eight of the 478 people on board were killed.
>South Korea, April 2014: At least 300 passengers, including students on a school trip died when a ferry started sinking off the southern coast near Jindo. The ferry had travelled overnight from Incheon on the northwestern coast of South Korea, and was three hours short of its destination when the ship began to list.
