Death toll from Lake Victoria ferry disaster rises to over 100
Second day of rescue efforts gets under way as 200 feared dead
The death toll rose above 100 after a ferry capsized and sank on Lake Victoria, Tanzania state radio reported yesterday, while a second day of rescue efforts raced to beat the setting sun.
The toll was likely to go up, John Mongella, commissioner for the Mwanza region, said after dozens of security forces and volunteers resumed work at daybreak.
“More than 200 people are feared dead,” based on accounts from fishermen and others nearby, because passengers had been returning from a busy market day, Tanzania Red Cross spokeswoman Godfrida Jola said.
“But no one knows” just how many people were on board.
Such ferries often carry hundreds of passengers and are overcrowded, and shifts in weight as passengers move to disembark can become deadly.
Images from the scene showed the ferry’s exposed underside not far from shore.
As President John Magufuli urged the country with a history of similar disasters to remain calm, Pope Francis and a number of African leaders expressed shock and sorrow.
“His Holiness Pope Francis expresses his heartfelt solidarity with those who mourn the loss of their loved ones and who fear for the lives of those still missing,” his telegram said, according to the Vatican.
At least 37 people had been rescued from the sunken ferry as of Thursday evening, when rescue teams called off their work overnight.
Fear has gripped residents of the Mwanza region as they wait to hear the fate of relatives who travelled on the MV Nyerere on Thursday.
“I received a call telling me that I have lost my aunt, father and my younger brother,” says Editha Josephat Magesa, a local resident.
“We are really saddened and urge the government to provide a new ferry because the old one was small and the population is big.”
Local media say the ferry’s official capacity was 100 people, but officials say the vessel was carrying more than 400 passengers when it capsized.
It operates on a busy route, crossing eight times a day between the islands of Ukara and Ukwerewe, which are close to Tanzania’s secondlargest city of Mwanza.
The ferry was said to have been particularly busy because it was market day in Bugorora, on Ukerewe island.
The vessel was also carrying cargo, including bags of cement and maize, when it capsized around 50 metres from the shore.
It is thought that many of the passengers would not have been able to swim.
An official investigation will take place once rescue efforts to find survivors have ended.
Exact figures, though, are yet to be confirmed - it was reported that the person who dispensed tickets for the journey also died, with the machine recording the data lost.
No foreigners had been found among the dead, Mwanza police commander Jonathan Shanna said yesterday.
The passenger ferry MV Nyerere, named for the former president who led the East African nation to independence, was travelling between Ukara and Bugolora when it sank, according to the government agency in charge of servicing the vessels.
Tanzania has seen a number of nautical disasters, with overcrowding often playing a role.
In 2012, at least 145 people died when a packed ferry sank while transporting people to the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean.
The year before, almost 200 people died in another major incident off the coast of Zanzibar.
Hundreds survived, some found clinging to mattresses and fridges.
In 1996, more than 800 people died when the MV Bukoba capsized on Lake Victoria. It was one of the the worst ferry disasters of the last century.