Intense heat keeps rescuers away

Intense heat prevented rescuers yesterday from boarding the smoldering hulk of the SuperFerry 14 to search for at least 112 people missing since Friday, when a deadly blaze gutted the luxury passenger ferry, leaving at least two dead.

Coast Guard vessels circled the ferry yesterday and put up flotation devices to prevent bunker fuel from spilling.

"We are here now, checking and assessing the situation," Coast Guard commandant Vice Admiral Arthur Gosingan said from the site. "So far, we can still see white smoke coming from the inside."

Gosingan said they have to continuously spray the ferry with water to reduce the temperature inside before investigators can start an extensive examination of the vessel.

"We have to pump water to cool down the ship before government probe teams can enter the ferry and determine if there are survivors or casualties left inside the cabins," Gosingan said.

Scuba divers will also check for bodies trapped underwater, but "there appears to be no signs of that" at the moment, Gosingan said.

President Arroyo, meanwhile, ordered Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza to take the lead in the investigation of the accident.

At the same time, Mrs. Arroyo assured the families of the missing passengers and crew that search and rescue operations will not be called off until all of them are accounted for.

"We must keep their families and the public posted regularly about developments," she said.

Coast Guard officials and the ship’s owners were still trying to reconcile the conflicting numbers of the missing.

The Coast Guard said as many as 112 people were missing while WG&A said only around 70 remained unaccounted for.

WG&A earlier reported two bodies had been recovered. It corrected the death toll late Friday to one without any explanation.

But the Coast Guard said yesterday the body count remains at two with at least 12 people injured, most of them with burns.

The Coast Guard reported 613 passengers and 153 crew have been rescued so far. Most of the survivors were picked up by passing commercial and fishing vessels, cargo ships as well as the search and rescue boats of the Coast Guard and the Navy.

Four Coast Guard vessels and many volunteer boats backed by a helicopter and an airplane scoured the mouth of Manila Bay near Corregidor island, where the vessel caught fire before dawn Friday while en route to Bacolod City.

The ill-fated ferry was towed yesterday to Sisiman Bay in Mariveles, Bataan, where thin smoke could still be seen rising from its partly submerged body.

The Coast Guard’s Gosingan said he requested the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) to provide oxygen breathing apparatus and thermal suits to enable rescuers to go inside the smoldering ship.

Gosingan also rejected theories of a possible terrorist attack that caused the explosion heard on board past midnight.

The explosion could not have necessarily been caused by a bomb, since the ship has a boiler, air-condition system and other equipment with pressurized gas, he said.

"In the absence of proof that it was a sabotage operation, I reject the theory (of terrorist attack)," Gosingan said.

He, however, admitted the possibility of terrorism will be looked into during the investigation. "There is a very minimal percentage of terrorism angle but it would be part of the investigation," he said.

At the same time, the Coast Guard official said authorities "have not yet downgraded the operation to search and retrieve."

Gosingan feared the number of casualties could rise since they have yet to determine if any of the unaccounted passengers and crew were trapped inside the blazing ferry or had drowned.

The 10,192-ton SuperFerry 14 was carrying 702 passengers and 159 crew when an explosion of undetermined origin triggered the fire in the engine room and quickly spread to the passenger decks.

There were conflicting reports about what caused the explosion and fire. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Danilo Abinoja said it may have originated in the engine room, while a passenger said an air conditioner exploded.

WG&A spokeswoman Gina Virtusio said the fire started in the tourist section on the third deck, which includes air-conditioned sleeping cabins and a dining area.

Virtusio said the fire first broke out in the packed dining area and that an explosion was heard prior to that.

Authorities, meanwhile, widened the area of search and rescue operations extending from Bataan to Batangas coastlines.

Local government officials have also been alerted for possible survivors in their areas.

Office of Civil Defense (OCD) administrator Melchor Rosales said several teams have been dispatched to look for survivors in coastal areas.

Navy spokesman Commander Geronimo Malabanan said they have widened their search on the possibility that other survivors might have been swept in the open sea outside Manila Bay.

Malabanan assured that search and rescue operations will proceed until all the 112 missing are accounted for.

Relatives of the missing, many of them sleepless from waiting for news of their loves ones, gathered at the Coast Guard headquarters in Manila.

"My mother was there," said a teary-eyed Rowena Caniasa, whose 71-year-old mother was among the passengers.

"We were assured by the Coast Guard that nobody was left on the ship," she said, wondering why her mother had not been found.

The Inquiry

The President has ordered a full investigation into the incident and called on the DOTC to come up with stricter guidelines in the implementation of maritime laws.

"The authorities will get to the bottom of this incident by ferreting out the full circumstances behind the fire and take steps to ensure it does not happen again," Mrs. Arroyo said.

The Coast Guard said a nine-man special marine inquiry headed by Commodore Wilfredo Tamayo will start the investigations.

The Coast Guard also made a request for the Bureau of Fire Protection and Philippine National Police (PNP) to assist in the investigations to provide Scene-of-the-Crime (SOCO) operatives.

Officials said the probe will start as soon as the vessel cools down and can be boarded for inspection. But Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Armand Balilo said this might take another day.

Officials said the marine inquiry board will await WG&A’s report on the incident before starting its investigations.

Maritime officials said the inquiry will mark the second time WG&A will be put under scrutiny following the mishap of SuperFerry 12 which figured in a collision with another ship, killing 40 people and injuring scores of passengers, on May 25 last year.

Maritime accidents are relatively common in the Philippines, a country of more than 7,000 islands linked by networks of passenger ferries and cargo ships.

The Philippines bears the infamy of being the site of the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster — the sinking of the passenger vessel Doña Paz in December 1987 after it collided with the fuel tanker Vector, killing 4,340 people.

Lawmakers, on the other hand, sought the immediate enactment of two pending bills at the Senate that would provide adequate protection to passengers at sea.

Senators Manuel Villar and Rodolfo Biazon separately called yesterday for the immediate passage of two Senate bills citing its urgency.

"Shipping disasters have occurred quite often in the Philippines that they are already considered ordinary occurrences notwithstanding their pernicious effects such as loss of lives and properties," Villar said.

Villar cited Senate Bill 997 or the Maritime Casualties Reporting Act, which he filed in 2002.

Villar explained the bill seeks to fill in the void in the country’s existing laws on the mandatory reporting of casualties of common carriers, particularly in maritime transportation.

"It is quite ironic that there is no mandatory reporting of marine casualties to determine the loss of lives and properties resulting from such accidents which would be the basis of the victims in their claim for injury and damages," Villar said.

For his part, Biazon said that the Senate should immediately pass Senate bill 1382 or the Maritime Code, which he filed on December 12, 1998, seeking to delineate responsibilities of government agencies in case of sea tragedies.

"The Maritime Code upgrades the laws dealing with the registration of ships, maritime liens and ship mortgages, maritime fraud, accident at sea and ship owner’s liability. These antiquated laws and the fragmentation and overlapping of functions of the different maritime bureaus and agencies is what causing the dismal and ineffective implementation of safety standards at sea," Biazon said.

Biazon said that the powers, functions, authority and responsibilities among government agencies in the maritime industry must be clearly defined.

"The current maritime administration functions of government are thinly spread among 14 bureaus and agencies and seven departments," Biazon said. – With reports from Jose Aravilla, Nestor Etolle, Marichu Villanueva, Raffy Viray, Jaime Laude, Jose Rodel Clapano, AFP