MANILA, Philippines — A ferry with more than 350 people on board sank early Monday near an island in the southern Philippines, killing at least 15 people, officials said.
Rescuers saved at least 316 passengers and crewmembers retrieved 15 bodies, and a fleet of boats backed by a surveillance plane was carrying out a search and rescue operation for the missing.
Coast guard officials said the cargo and passenger ferry apparently encountered technical problems and sank after midnight. The vessel abruptly tilted to one side and took on water, hurling people into the sea in the darkness, according to a rescued passenger who lost his 6-month-old baby.
“My wife lost hold of our baby and all of us got separated at sea,” a distraught Mohamad Khan told a volunteer rescuer, Gamar Alih, who posted a video of Khan’s remarks on Facebook.
He said he and his wife, who had been holding their child, were rescued, but the baby drowned. His wife wept by his side as Khan told of their ordeal.
The M/V Trisha Kerstin 3 was sailing in good weather from the port city of Zamboanga to southern Jolo island in Sulu province with 332 passengers and 27 crew members.
It sank about a nautical mile (nearly 2 kilometers) from the island village of Baluk-baluk in Basilan province, said coast guard Commander Romel Dua.
“There was a coast guard safety officer on board and he was the first to call and alert us to deploy rescue vessels,” Dua said, adding that the safety officer survived.
The cause of the ferry sinking was not immediately clear and there will be an investigation, Dua said. The coast guard had cleared the ferry before it left the Zamboanga port, and there was no sign of overloading, he said.
Coast guard and navy ships, along with a surveillance plane, an air force Black Hawk helicopter and fleets of fishing boats were carrying out search and rescue operations off Basilan, Dua said.
Alih, a village councilor from Zamboanga city, told The Associated Press that he volunteered to help in the search and rescue because some of his relatives were among the ferry passengers. They all survived.
Basilan Governor Mujiv Hataman said several passengers and two bodies were brought to Isabela, the provincial capital, where he and ambulance vans waited.
“I’m receiving 37 people here in the pier. Unfortunately, two are dead,” Hataman said, speaking by cellphone from the Isabela pier.
Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.
In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker in the central Philippines, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s deadliest peacetime maritime disaster.
