A ferry that went missing in a cyclone off Madagascar sank in mountainous seas with all but two of its 113 crew and passengers trapped inside, authorities on Thursday quoted the two survivors as saying.
“The two Comoran survivors are the only survivors,” Jean Ralambo, head of Madagascar’s merchant marine service, told Reuters after questioning the man and woman.
Officials in the Comoros identified the two survivors as Ibrahim Aboud and Madame Fatima and said eight of the passengers on the ferry were children.
The Samson’s 92 passengers and 21 crew had been feared dead after the vessel failed to arrive in Madagascar as scheduled on Monday, a day after Cyclone Gafilo first hit the island.
But the account provided by the man and woman is the only information to come to light about the ferry’s fate.
The two, who were travelling on the Samson from the Comoran island of Anjouan to Madagascar’s second port of Mahajanga, washed ashore in Madagascar on Monday on a makeshift liferaft.
“Questioned separately, the two gave an identical account of the sinking, which confirms its truthfulness,” Ralambo added.
He reported the two as saying heavy seas flipped the ferry over at mid-evening on Sunday and it sank rapidly with all its other occupants trapped inside.
The two recalled that as the vessel tilted, a refrigerator aboard the Samson broke loose from its position and slammed into them, knocking them overboard where they took hold of a makeshift raft, Ralambo said.
“These two sailed their small vessel all night long before managing to make shore at the village of Ampasimariny the following day, where they were discovered by local people,” he said. The two were recovering in hospital.
In Moroni, Comoran officials reported the two as giving a slightly different version, saying that as the storm engulfed the Samson the captain had instructed all passengers to put on their life jackets and gather in two cabins.
Sensing the vessel was foundering, the two had refused his order and jumped into the sea instead. Seconds later the Samson capsized, Comoran officials reported the two as saying.
Comoros Transport Minister Houmed Mdahoma M’Saidie said a period of national mourning would be declared when more information about the incident had been gathered.
A Madagascar state radio report on storm damage said without elaborating that the trawler Vega 9 had been found wrecked in a northwestern estuary, missing all but one of its 15-strong crew. Rescuers had launched a search for the missing workers. The 15th man was found exhausted nearby and taken to hospital.
Gafilo, which officials said killed 43 people and made more than 100,000 homeless on Madagascar at the weekend, swept back over the Indian Ocean island on Wednesday but there have been no reports of new damage. Fifty-six people have been reported missing since the storm first hit, officials said.
Foreign Minister Marcel Ranjeva has appealed for international aid.
