The death toll from Tanzania’s ferry disaster could significantly rise after it emerged there were more than 1,000 passengers aboard the vessel when it capsized last week, a senior Zanzibar official said on Monday. Initial reports suggested the MV Spice Islander was carrying 800 people, well above the ferry’s 600 passenger capacity, when it sank in the east African nation’s worst maritime disaster for 15 years. “We are expecting some more bodies between now, tomorrow or the day after.
We managed to recover 197 bodies, but because the ship took more than 1,000 people, we expect more bodies,” Zanzibar’s second vice-president, Seif Ali Iddi, told Reuters. More than 600 passengers were rescued from the ferry and the vice president of the semi-autonomous archipelago said he does not expect any more survivors to be found. Iddi said South African divers were expected on Monday to start searching the wreck of the ferry at the bottom of the Indian Ocean for more bodies. “At this time … we don’t expect any survivors unless maybe they managed to escape to Tanga (in mainland Tanzania) or to Mombasa (in Kenya). Our hope to get survivors is very small, but we expect to get more bodies,” he said.
