"62 alive after ferry capsized; Search continues for hundreds" by Carlos H. Conde, New York Times News Service | June 25, 2008
MANILA - Laborte, 60, was one of the 62 confirmed survivors of the ferry, the Princess of the Stars, which was struck by Typhoon Fengshen on Saturday, possibly killing most of the more than 800 passengers and crew. He and 27 others huddled in the lifeboat, which ended up Monday on the shore of Quezon province, miles from the island of Sibuyan, near where the ferry capsized.
The ferry disaster could turn out to be one of the worst in the Philippines in the past two decades. On Tuesday, rescue teams from the Philippine Coast Guard penetrated the overturned ship and found many corpses.
Coast guard divers retrieved only one body from inside while another body was seen floating outside the ship, according to a Philippines Navy spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo.
He said it was too dark inside the ship to determine the number of victims.
"Most of the bodies were floating inside. They were trapped when the seven-story ship suddenly tilted and capsized," he told DZBB radio.
Apart from sinking the ferry, the storm also submerged whole towns and communities, knocked down power lines and caused landslides. The Red Cross said that 177 people died elsewhere in the country, including 106 in Iloilo Province. Another 438, excluding those from the ferry, were still missing.
According to the National Disaster Coordinating Council, 38 of the country's 82 provinces were affected by the typhoon, which packed winds of up to 125 miles an hour.
I keep hearing HAARPS, readers.
Bodies have been washing ashore on several different islands near Sibuyan and the authorities could not yet determine whether these bodies came from the ferry or from the other vessels.
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