Search for 10 missing 'Don Dexter' passengers resumes
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 11/05/2008 7:43 AM
Printer-friendly version | 
Send to friend | 
Share your views
Government search teams resumed retrieval operations for at least 10 more passengers of a motor boat that sank off Dimasalang town in Masbate province, Tuesday afternoon.
Senior Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, Masbate police director, said the weather in the province was fair and there are no more obstacles for search teams to resume the retrieval operations, which started "at the break of daylight."
Sindac said at least 10 more passengers of M/B Don Dexter were still missing when teams from the Masbate police, Philippine Coast Guard, and Philippine Navy suspended the search Tuesday night.
As of 6 a.m., Sindac said the death toll was still 40 and the number of rescued passengers was 100.
There were earlier reports that 42 bodies had been recovered by the retrieval teams. Eleven of the fatalities were children, 25 were women and six were old men.
The M/B Don Dexter was traveling to Bulan, Sorsogon from Dimasalang when it was hit by sudden strong winds and big waves (called subasko in the local dialect) and keeled over off the coastal village of Magcaraguit in Dimasalang town around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
A local radio report said rescue and retrieval operations were temporarily halted 9 p.m. Tuesday since waves were getting bigger and it was getting too dark.
Some of the recovered bodies were earlier placed at the town plaza for identification, but the radio report said all were already taken home by their respective kin.
Freak whirlwind
"The Don Dexter capsized due to a freak accident. It was hit by a high wind despite fair weather and calm waters," Sindac told local radio.
Second Lieutenant Jeffrey Collado, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) – Masbate chief, also said the ferry was hit by a "freak whirlwind" that rose suddenly when the ferry left the port.
Sindac said the ferry had just left the port town of Dimasalang for Sorsogon port 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. The ferry was just 20 minutes into its voyage when it capsized, the police official said.
PCG described the vessel as a large wooden-hulled outrigger, the main mode of transport between the 7,000 islands that make up the Southeast Asian archipelago.
Overloaded?
The ferry had 119 passengers and crew on its manifest when it capsized, said Sindac, but he would not rule out the possibility that there may have been more aboard.
It is a common practice for inter-island ferries to be overloaded with last-minute passengers boarding without being listed in the manifest.
A special marine inquiry would be launched, said PCG, to verify the boat’s papers as well as to check if the boat was indeed overloaded.
"Of course, we will be conducting an investigation of this, but for now we will be concentrating on the search and rescue operations," said PCG chief of staff Captain Efren Evangelista.
It said the probe would also determine how the boat was able to leave port without permission from the PCG.
The PCG said the motor boat’s captain, Dante Bombales, is already in their custody.
The accident comes four months after the 23,000 ton inter-island ferry, Princess of the Stars, capsized during a typhoon off the central island of Sibuyan carrying 850 passengers and crew.
Only 57 passengers and crew survived the accident which was the worst maritime disaster in the Philippines for 20 years.
Mishaps involving ferries are common in this archipelago where many poor people rely on small, poorly-maintained vessels to travel between islands.
