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Sunday, November 02, 2008
113 bodies found at Princess’ wreck
MANILA –- Divers from the Philippine Coast Guard and two salvor companies combed the wreck of the M/V Princess of the Stars on its seventh day and recovered a total of 113 bodies.
Dive supervisor Jorge Ponce said they have already finished combing through the passenger cabins located at Deck B of the capsized vessel and as of 4 p.m. Saturday, they found 113 bodies.
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"We have combed through almost 90 percent of Deck B that consist of the passengers' cabin, but we still have to search through the crew's accommodation which is 10 percent of their target in Deck B," said Ponce.
The 18 divers of the salvaging firm Harbor Star are now wrapping up their retrieval operations at Deck B after finishing searching through Deck C or the economy section.
Of the 864 passengers and crew on board the passenger and cargo vessel, about 515 people remain missing.
But after their week long operations that started last October 26, divers might not be able to locate all the missing bodies, he said.
Ponce said they might not even found 200 bodies as Harbor Star project manager Rod Bella said that some passengers could have jumped overboard just before the vessel sank.
“If the report is true and there were 500 people missing, if they were still on board the ship, then we should have found their bodies when we were at Deck C. But the bodies were scarce," he said.
However, Ponce said they would still conduct "confirmation dives” in which divers would conduct surveys grid by grid just to make sure that they have covered all the areas.
At present, there are three Coast Guard ships on standby. The Coast Guard has also kept its Marine Environmental and Protection Unit (Mepu), Special Operations Group (SOG) and oil spill booms in the area to prevent possible oil spill.
It can be recalled that the 23,000 gross tons M/V Princess of the Stars left the Port of Manila for its voyage to Cebu on June 21.
However, just before noontime the next day, upon reaching Sibuyan Island of Romblon province, the vessel entered the eye of Typhoon Frank and was met by strong winds and waves and heavy rain that caused the ship to tilt by 40 degrees to its port side (left side) and turn over completely.
There were more than 800 people on board the vessel and the PCG said that at least 33 have survived, more than 200 have been confirmed dead and about 515 remains missing. The M/V Princess of the Stars is said to be the biggest ship to have sailed the domestic waters.
The recovered bodies will be brought to Cebu City early next week for processing by the disaster victim identification (DVI) team.
The DVI team is expecting to get 500 more bodies from the vessel but with only one deck left unchecked, experts were wondering if divers will find all the remaining bodies.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and foreign experts of the International Police (Interpol) compose the DVI team.
Out of the 314 bodies that have arrived from the sunken M/V Princess of the Stars, 122 have been identified through DNA matching. Forty more bodies were identified through other means, such as physical marks or personal belongings left on the body. (PNA/Sunnex)
(November 2, 2008 issue)
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