Naic - Hopes of finding alive more than 100 people still missing after a Philippine ferry sank in a storm on Friday faded yesterday as rescue boats found only corpses. Many of the 39 so far recovered had life vests on. The coastguard said at least 311 passengers and crew, out of the 454 people aboard, survived the latest blot in the grim maritime safety record of this country of 7,000 islands, where ferries are the cheapest mode of inter-island transport.
The ferry company gave conflicting figures on the number of those on board and those who survived.