At least 18 killed as ferry sinks near Basilan in the Philippines

A ROPAX ferry identified as MV Trisha Kerstin 3 sank near Basilan in the Philippines. At least 18 people were killed. Rescuers brought 316 others off the vessel or out of the water. Ten people were reported missing after the sinking.

A ROPAX ship is a roll-on, roll-off passenger ferry, built to carry people together with vehicles that drive aboard. Basilan is an island province in the southern Philippines. The report placed the sinking in waters near that province and did not give a port of departure or a destination. It also did not state the cause of the sinking.

The toll was given with the qualifier at least, so the number of dead was a floor rather than a closed count. The 316 rescued stood as a separate figure from both the dead and the missing. Ten people remained unaccounted for when the account was filed. No names of passengers or crew were included.

Rescue operations were described as underway after the ferry went down. The report did not say how many people had been aboard in total, so the three figures cannot be added into a confirmed passenger list. It did not describe the sea conditions or the hour the vessel foundered. The operational fact was the scale of the rescue beside the loss of life.

Ferry sinkings are counted among maritime disasters because a single hull can carry hundreds of people in coastal waters. In this case the rescued group was far larger than the number known dead, while a smaller group was still missing. Searchers had not closed the list of the missing at the time of the report. Authorities had not, in the account given, revised the toll beyond those three numbers.

The sinking of MV Trisha Kerstin 3 was the day's principal maritime disaster in the Philippines. At least 18 people were dead, 316 had been rescued, and ten were missing near Basilan. No further breakdown by age or nationality was stated. The outcome remained those three reported figures.