According to maritime officials, the dead toll from a ship wreck off the coast of Madagascar this week has grown to 85.
Only 50 people were recovered from the 12-foot-long (3.6-meter) boat carrying cargo that sank on Monday, according to maritime authorities.
Death toll rises to 85 in Madagascar ship wreck. Five children are among the deceased.
The cargo boat, which was not licensed to transport passengers, had set sail from Antseraka for Soanierana-Ivongo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south.
According to Adrien Fabrice Ratsimbazafy of the River and Maritime Port Agency, initial examinations revealed the vessel’s engine had a “technical fault”.
On Wednesday, Jocelyne Kalou, the manager of the Le Fumet hotel in Soanierana-Ivongo, told AFP that the local cemetery was “too small to receive all the bodies.” They’re being dispatched to villages in the vicinity.”
Local mayor Alban Menavolo stated he assisted in the transport of 39 remains to the hamlet by truck, claiming that the majority of the victims were residents and that he knew several of them.
“I am very tired – I am having to shoulder the grief of the entire community. This kind of tragedy is very rare,” he said.
A police helicopter that had taken out from Antananarivo’s capital with Police Minister Serge Gelle on board to assist with search and rescue crashed at sea just hours after the accident.
Gelle and an officer were flung from the craft and made it to land after swimming for approximately 12 hours.
“Since I couldn’t fight the waves, I knew I wouldn’t make it to dry land. Yet I was very close. I arrived within 500 meters, but the waves sent me back because I was getting tired,” Gellé said in a video posted by the gendarmerie.
“I thank heaven that there was a fisherman. But the fisherman’s canoe was too small. So he had to come back for a bigger canoe. So I stayed two more hours in the sea,” Gellé said from a hospital in the Madagascan capital.
