PASSENGER SHIP SINKS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 236, 18 July 1947, Page 3

PASSENGER SHIP SINKS

NEARLY 700 LIVES LOST STORM OFF BOMBAY COAST (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 9.20 a.m.) LONDON, July 17. A steamship carrying about 700 passengers and crew sank in a heavy storm off the c°ast of Kolaba, south of Bombay, and reports say that there were only 12 survivors, says Reuter's correspondent. The sunken steamship belonged to the Bombay Steam Navigation Company. The vessel this morning met violent rainstorms and heavy jseas half an hour after leaving Bombay. The crew vainly tried to take the vessel into a coastal creek about 11 miles south of Bombay. The 12 survivors who reached Bomibay were too shocked to give, any account of the disaster. The vessel was bound for Rewas, five miles from Kolaba Point. Reuter’s Bombay correspondent says the sunken ship was the Ramdas, of 406 tons, the biggest vessel on the six-hour ferry service between Bombay and Rewas. The survivors Included the vessel's captain, Sheikh Suleman, and eight members of the crew. Lloyds gives the owners of the Ramdas as the India Co-operative Navigation and Trading Company, not the Bombay Steam Navigation Company. The Bombay correspondent of the Associated Press quotes a port official as saying that the shores near the harbour are littered with dead bodie*s. Two bodies were picked up near the lighthouse at, the harbour entrance. The general-manager of the i .Bombay Steam Navigation Company, agents for the owners, the Indian Co-operative Navigation and Trading Company, stated* that “not more than 15 to 20 persons were saved from the Ramdas,” reports the Associated Press Bombay correspondent. Survivors told the manager that two tremendous waves capsized the vessei. It is unofficially reported that fishing vessels and another coastal vessel directed to the scene rescued about 150 persons.