Thirty feared dead after ship capsizes

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 4

Thirty feared dead after ship capsizes

Special correspondent Two young men who gave their places on a liferaft for a woman and her children are among the 30 people feared dead after a charter vessel sank north of Honiara in the Solomon Islands.

The two clung for more than a day to the side of the . crowded inflatable raft before their strength sapped and they drifted away.

Twenty-one people, including four children, were plucked from the raft by the Royal Solomon Islands police vessel Savo on Tuesday.

Another two men were found washed ashore on Ndai Island, having been in the water for up to 36 hours. One of the men struggled in vain for much of that time to support his wife.

The men’s landfall was some <7O nautical miles from where the 78-ton vessel sank in bad weather.

The Vula, chartered by the Australian Boxwood Timber Company, was carrying 57 passengers and crew when it apparently capsized in bad weather.

Early reports suggested that its heavy cargo, including two bulldozers, may have destabilised the vessel. Those aboard had been on their way from • the Solomons capital, Honiara, to the north-western tip of Santa Isabel Island to set up a logging camp.

An Australian naval adviser in the search and rescue operation, Captain Darryl Neild, said that the 21 liferaft survivors had been flown to Honiara for hospital treatment. AH were suffering from abrasions and prolonged exposure to the sun. The children had developed pneunomia.

Captain Neild said that the chances of finding any more survivors were “next to nil.”

“Those still unaccounted for will now have spent 132 hours in the water. The two liferafts on board the vessel have both been recovered.

“The likelihood of anyone’s still being alive is pretty slim. But as long as we are finding something we will carry on,” he said. The second of the ship’s rafts was recovered deflated with a body nearby. The two men who battled to Ndai Island are believed to have abandoned the raft when, it punctured.

Three other bodies have been pulled from the water.

Captain Neild said reports that two persons had been taken by sharks were quite likely. ‘'The possibility of encountering sharks in tropical waters like these is fairly high, especially when you are bleeding from cuts and abrasions,” he said.