Normalverkehr

Divers managed to get inside an upside-down ferry Tuesday but found only bodies three day after the vessel capsized with more than 800 people aboard during a powerful typhoon, officials said.

“Most of the bodies were floating inside. They were trapped when the seven-story ship suddenly tilted and capsized,” Philippine navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo told dzBB radio.

He would not speculate on whether anyone still might be found alive - saying the ship’s interior was too dark to even determine how many bodies were there - but indicated that the time since the disaster made it unlikely.

He said it was possible some passengers could have survived initially, but the roiling seas had kept rescuers at bay too long and that suffocation may have claimed some lives.

Arevalo said that while some of the bodies had life vests, “it seems the passengers hesitated from jumping in turbulent waters” because “it happened too sudden,” referring to survivors’ accounts of the ship quickly listing and going down in a half-hour or less.

“(With the life vests) you will survive for a few hours, but in time, the air will run out,” he added.

Coast guard chief Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo said about 20 coast guard and navy divers were at the scene and were expected to be joined soon by frogmen from a U.S. Navy ship coming from Guam.

He said the divers had broken windows and used every other gap they could find to get inside the 23,824-ton Princess of Stars, which has only one end jutting from the water off Sibuyan island.