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At least 42 people
drowned when a ferry sank on Thursday in Tanzania‘s Lake
Victoria and government officials feared the final death toll
could be more than 200, a senior local official said.
Ukerewe District Commissioner Colonel Lucas Magembe told
Reuters that the rescue mission to find survivors from the
disaster had been halted until dawn on Friday with 42 people
confirmed dead.
Initial estimates showed that the MV Nyerere was carrying
more than 300 people onboard. It went down in the afternoon just
a few metres from the dock in Ukerewe district, according to
national ferry services operator TEMESA said.
But it was hard to establish the precise number of
passengers on board since the person dispensing tickets had also
drowned with the machine recording the data lost.
TEMESA spokeswoman Theresia Mwami said the operator had
carried out maintenance on the ferry in recent months,
overhauling two engines.
In 1996, a ferry disaster on Lake Victoria in the same
region killed at least 500 people.
In 2012, at least 145 people died in a ferry disaster in
Tanzania‘s semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar in the Indian
Ocean, on a vessel that was overcrowded.
Also read: Tanzanian ferry capsizes in Lake Victoria with dozens on board, rescue on
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