More than 200 people were plucked from waters off Papua New Guinea Thursday after a ferry sank but many others remained missing, with rescuers scouring the area for further survivors. Operator Star Ships said it lost contact with the MV Rabaul Queen at about 6am on Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday) while it was travelling between Kimbe and Lae in the east of the Pacific nation, blaming "bad weather" for the disaster.
The PNG National Maritime Safety Authority (NMSA) said it was first alerted by a distress signal early Thursday and confirmed that "the vessel has sunk and passengers are in the waters awaiting rescue". Rescue co-ordinator Captain Nurur Rahman said more than 300 people were on board the vessel but it was too early to say why the ferry went down, refusing to speculate on whether the ship was overloaded.
"Our priority at the moment is to save lives, but it is an unusual occurrence," he told AFP. "We've had a few cargo ship mishaps before, but never a ferry." He said weather conditions were manageable, helping the rescue operation. "There are strong winds, but that's normal. The ship has completely sunk - you can't see anything," he added.
Australia's Maritime Safety Authority said the Rabaul Queen went down about nine nautical miles (16 kilometres) off the coast and it was helping co-ordinate the rescue, with 219 people saved so far. "As at 4:30pm (0530 GMT), there are eight merchant vessels on scene, five of which have recovered survivors," it said. "There are reported to be 219 survivors on these five vessels." "Further fixed-wing aviation search assets have also been tasked by AMSA, including an Australian Defence Force PC3 Orion aircraft and AMSA's Darwin-based Dornier," the maritime agency said.
Comments
Comments are closed.