25 Dead, Scores Missing as Ferry with 250 People Sinks in Myanmar

Of the 240-250 people on board the ferry, 70-80 were students and close to 30 were school teachers.

Picture for representational purpose. (Photo: iStockphoto)

Rescuers have recovered 25 bodies after a ferry sank in central Myanmar and expect to find scores of more corpses as workers began raising the boat from the riverbed, officials said on Monday.

A total of 154 people have been rescued since the boat sank early on Saturday on the Chindwin river about 72 km north of the city of Monywa.

The boat was carrying an estimated 240-250 people – around 100 more than its capacity – along with heavy cargo, including several motorbikes.

Search teams scouring the river, who are now securing the boat with ropes so it can be hauled out by a crane, fear the death toll could be as high as 100.

"So far, we have found 25 bodies but we are still trying to lift the boat out," said Sa Willy Frient, the director of the local relief and resettlement department who is overseeing the operation.

The ferry had mainly university students – 70 to 80 of them – and school teachers along with doctors, he said.

Earlier, he told AFP the ferry had been filled with "mainly university students and schoolteachers" when it sank around 5 am on Saturday. Sai Khaing Myo Tun, vice president of Myanmar's teachers' federation, said more than 30 school staffers were thought to have been aboard.

Four of the boat's staff have been arrested and will face legal action, said Sa Willy Frient. Authorities are still hunting for one crew member and the ferry's owner.

Survivor Hnin Lei Yee, a 27-year-old school teacher, was travelling with her husband and one-year-old daughter to celebrate the Buddhist Thadingyut festival with her family.

Her baby was killed in the disaster. She still does not know her husband's fate. Weeping, she said:

It happened very fast. The window was open so I had a chance to get out of the boat. I cannot swim and had to hold on to a plastic float. Finally, the rescue boat came to save my life. In the morning, I heard there was a dead child in the hospital and I went there. I saw my daughter dead.

Boat accidents are common in Myanmar, where people living along the nation's long coastline and flood-prone river systems rely heavily on often overcrowded ferries for transport.