PCG: 124 dead, 56 survivors in ferry mishap found
By Joel Guinto, Nikko Dizon
INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 18:04:00 06/26/2008
Filed Under: Sulpicio ferry disaster
MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) The number of confirmed deaths from the sinking of the MV Princess of the Stars province has risen to 124, while 56 survivors, including five crewmen, have been accounted, data from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) showed.
The passenger ferry was carrying 862 passengers and crew when it capsized off Sibuyan Island in Romblon in the evening of June 21, the height of typhoon "Frank" (international codename: Fengshen).
The tally of the Coast Guard Action Center said 98 of the dead are “unidentified,” while 19 are male, five are female, and two are unidentified children.
Forty of the survivors are male and six are female, while five others remain unidentified.
The five rescued crewmen are Renato Lunarias, Roel Vibo, Ciriaco Nuñez, Fel Gilig, and Estanislao Tura.
It was not clear from the PCG report if the death toll includes remains retrieved from the wreckage of the ship.
Meanwhile, search and rescue efforts for passengers and crew of the sunken ferry have begun to shift to the retrieval of bodies believed to have come from the ill-fated ship.
However, authorities were quick to stress that they were not abandoning hopes of finding more survivors five days after the sea mishap.
"There is still the search aspect in the operations. The commandant is the one who will declare when to stop the search and if [the operations] would be totally retrieval only. At this point there is no instruction yet," Coast Guard Commander Luis Tuason, Jr. told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo by phone.
By commandant, Tuason was referring to Coast Guard Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo.
Tamayo gave instructions for the Coast Guard's Islander plane and other Coast Guard detachments to continue search sorties to find bodies and survivors at sea, Tuason said.
Tamayo has also instructed Coast Guard detachments in Masbate and other Bicol provinces, as well as Marinduque and Quezon, to organize teams with the help of local government units to check shorelines for survivors and corpses washed ashore.
Tuason said divers from the Coast Guard, its auxiliary group, the Navy, and from the US military concentrated on Thursday on the retrieval of bodies from the sunken ferry.
He added that Sulpicio Lines was tasked to take photographs of recovered bodies for forensic examination and identification by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Cebu.
Tuason said the bodies retrieved by the Coast Guard would be brought to Cebu, the destination of the Princess of the Stars before it sank off Sibuyan Island in Romblon last June 21, with more than 800 passengers and crew on board.
The Philippine Air Force (PAF) shifted its operations Thursday to the retrieval of bodies, particularly on Burias Island, where some 40 corpses were washed ashore, and its vicinity, said Air Force operations chief, Colonel Roy Deveraturda.
"But [the] PAF will still fly search and rescue sorties combing shorelines and waters around Tablas, Sibuyan, Masbate, and Burias," Deveraturda said in a text message.
Deveraturda said the Air Force retrieved seven bodies near Burias Island on Wednesday.
A command post was to be established in Pasacao, Camarines Sur, east of Burias Island, for the "processing" of recovered remains, Deveraturda added.
Navy spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo said Thursday afternoon, the Navy's Patrol Ship 28 sailed to Burias Island to recover two other dead bodies.
"They are inclined to believe that they are a couple because their hands were tied together," Arevalo said.
On Wednesday night, the Navy ship recovered seven bodies of the more than 30 floating corpses sighted by a US P-3 Orion aircraft off Burias Island, while three more bodies were retrieved in Palana Point, also on Burias.
Arevalo said the 10 bodies recovered were those of five men and five women.
Seven of the fatalities had identification while the others had "distinctive marks and distinctive pieces of jewelry or clothes," the Navy official said. Some were wearing life vests.
Arevalo added he received a report on Thursday of another Navy ship sending a sketchy report that the bodies of two more men and two women were spotted floating in the waters off Colorado Point in Burias Island.
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