MANILA // At least 36 people were killed on Thursday when a ferry loaded with nearly 200 people capsized off a central Philippine port.
There are still 26 people missing after the 33-tonne, wooden-hulled Kim Nirvana tipped over about half an hour after setting sail from Ormoc city at midday, the coast guard said.
Rescuers pulled more than 100 survivors from the sea and continued to scour the waters about a kilometre from the coast where the accident happened, said Ciriaco Tolibao, an official from the city’s disaster risk reduction and management office.
“Some clung on to the hull of the overturned vessel, while some were rescued while swimming toward the shore,” Mr Tolibao said.
Back in Ormoc city, a distraught male survivor wept openly as crew members brought him ashore. Others, still shaken, recounted their ordeal to rescue officials.
A row of soaked survivors squatted on the pier nearby while awaiting medical attention, as emergency workers placed the injured onto stretchers.
The vessel was carrying 173 passengers and 16 crew members, and was licensed to carry up to 200 people, Mr Tolibao said.
Philippine coast guard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo said 36 bodies had been recovered while 127 people were rescued.
Authorities were investigating how the accident had happened in relatively calm waters. Initial speculation that it was overloaded has been discounted.
“There wasn’t any storm or any gale. We’re trying to find out [why it happened],” Mr Balilo said.
He said the boat’s outriggers apparently broke in the accident, and added it was possible the crew had committed a navigational error.
Ormoc and the rest of Leyte island was ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan which struck in November 2013, leaving more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines.
A flash flood also killed around 6,000 people in Ormoc in one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in 1991.
Poorly maintained, loosely regulated ferries are the backbone of maritime travel in the sprawling archipelago. This has led to frequent accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years, including the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster in 1987, when the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, killing more than 4,300 people.
* Agence France-Presse
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Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
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Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
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Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
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Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
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Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
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How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?
If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.
Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.
Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).
Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.
Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.
By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.
As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.
Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.
He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”
This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”
Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.
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The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
Rating: 3.5/5
