Dar es Salaam - At least 44 people were
confirmed dead and rescuers resumed searching at the crack of
dawn on Friday for hundreds more still missing, a day after a
ferry sank in Lake Victoria, Tanzanian police said.
Initial estimates suggested that the MV Nyerere was carrying
more than 300 people when it went down on Thursday afternoon,
just a few metres from the dock on Ukerewe, the lake's biggest
island, which is part of Tanzania.
Thirty-seven people had been rescued from the sea, while the
confirmed death toll rose to 44 from 42, Jonathan Shana, the
regional police commander for Mwanza, a port on the southern
shore of the lake, told Reuters by phone on Friday.
Shana said more rescuers had joined the operation when it
resumed at daylight on Friday. He did not give exact numbers.
The precise number of those aboard the ferry when it
capsized was hard to establish since crew and equipment had been
lost, officials said on Thursday.
Tanzania has been hit by several major ferry disasters over
the years. At least 500 people were killed when a ferry capsized
in Lake Victoria in 1996. In 2012, 145 people died when a ferry
sank off the shore of Tanzania's Indian Ocean archipelago of
Zanzibar.