12 rescued, 11 missing in Cavite sea collision

CAMP VICENTE LIM,Laguna, Philippines — The number of missing persons rose from nine to 11 while 12 others were rescued from the site of a collision between two sea vessels off the coast of Ternate, Cavite before midnight on Wednesday.

The rescued persons have all been brought to the Corregidor Island as of Thursday afternoon while search and rescue operations continued for the missing, said Police Officer 3 Judito Baligod of the Philippine National Police (PNP) station in Ternate in a phone interview.

Baligod said all of the missing and rescued persons were crew members of the fishing vessel “Dan Israel L” that was hit by a still unidentified sea vessel at around 11 p.m. Wednesday while sailing somewhere between Ternate and Caballo Island near Corregidor island.

“According to the information we got, they (crew members) said they were hit by a larger vessel, which left them immediately after the collision,” Baligod said.

Philippine Coast Guards personnel, he said, were still in the vicinity combing the waters, “but they are also giving us very limited information at this time,” he said in the phone interview past 5 p.m. Thursday.

Baligod said the collision was only reported to the local police station around 2 p.m. on Thursday.

He said that as of Thursday afternoon, they still had no word on the status of the ill-fated boat.

Two personnel of the Public Affairs Office of the Philippine Coast Guard, earlier confirmed the ship collision to the Philippine Daily Inquirer but both refused to give their names and disclose further details on the phone.

The personnel said they had no official report yet of the collision.