KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – The death toll from a ferry boat collision in the remote Borneo interior has risen to four, police said Tuesday, and several others are feared to be missing.
Seventeen people were rescued after Monday's accident on the upper reaches of the Anap river in central Sarawak state, on Malaysia's half of Borneo island, when an express boat collided with a barge.
"We have recovered four bodies including that of an infant girl," Anthony Anak Nanga, a police official in Tatau near the coastal town of Bintulu, told AFP.
Police are unsure how many were on board the ferry, complicating the recovery efforts.
Iswandi Ken, Bintulu marine operations force commander, told AFP that about 20 to 30 people were believed to be on board, meaning there could be several still missing.
Iswandi said search and rescue operations were being conducted by police and fire department officials.
Many parts of Sarawak, an underdeveloped and heavily forested state, are only accessible by air or by river. Transport along the long waterways is popular with people travelling between inland areas and coastal towns.
The Star daily quoted a survivor, Jackson Ukit, as saying there were at least 30 people on board the ill-fated vessel.
"It was chaotic. There was a crash and suddenly we were underwater," the 39-year-old told the daily from the hospital where he was taken after he managed to swim out of the wreckage.
The Star said that indigenous tribespeople from a nearby settlement, as well as workers from a timber camp, rushed to assist police in the rescue effort.
|