Search on for ferry passengers

Press, 9 August 1976, Page 8

Search on for ferry passengers

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Marine policemen and trawlers were hunting yesterday for more survivors of a ferry disaster in the Gulf of Thailand which killed at least 26 people, the Bangkok police said. They said 26 bodies had been found since the big ferry capsized early on Saturday off Surat Thani province, and about 50 other passengers had been reported missing. The police said there had been 10 foreign tourists aboard the ferry — all rescued unhurt.

They refused to give their identities, but said they believed that several were French, two of them women, one a Briton, who had been helpful in rescuing fellow passengers from the sea, one a German, and one an Australian.

Among the dead were five people found trapped inside the ferry as it sank while most of the passengers were asleep.

More than 200 people were safely picked up by fishing and marine boats, most of them shortly after the accident, the police said. The tourists were travelling to the increasingly popular island resort of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand, some 500 miles south of Bangkok. The overloaded ferry was carrying about 300 passengers and a heavy load of food and petrol. It capsized three miles offshore after, apparently, hitting a sandbar near one of the small islands in the area, newspaper reports said. The three-decker ferry had a normal capacity of 250.