All passengers, crew safe after Canadian ferry sinks

[MrPrax]

OTTAWA, March 22 (Xinhua) -- All 101 passengers and crew have been accounted for after the ferry they were traveling in sank offthe north coast of Canada's British Columbia early on Wednesday.

"The Queen of the North" began listing after she hit rocks shortly before 1 a.m. local time (9 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday, about 135 kilometers from Prince Rupert, reports reaching here said.
...
The ship is now completely submerged. Officials are waiting forone more rescue ship carrying survivors to arrive in Hartley Bay, a community roughly 120 kilometers south of Prince Rupert, where other passengers have been taken.

The ferry had been making the 450-kilometre journey from PrinceRupert south to Port Hardy when the incident happened. The 125-metre long ship could hold up to 700 people and 115 cars.

Clare Hill, a bed and breakfast owner who is helping take care of survivors at the Hartley Bay community centre, told reporters that the passengers were shaken but seemed fine. A few survivors reported minor injuries, such as a wrist injury and a gashed head.
Xinhua

I figured since most of the ferries sinking happen over in that part of the world, in the spirit of diversity and fairness, I will link it to Chinese national news service.

After listening to local CBC radio this morning--two possible reasons why the ferry sank..

1) "current government neglect over ferry worker wages and contracts"

OR

2) "former government neglect of the ferry fleet during the 90s"

So MIHOP or LIHOP? (and no!!, conspiracy theories about it hitting a 'rock at night' are not appreciated and ONLY contribute to disinformation)

See You in 2010!!!



Catch the Spirit...We Will Try Not To Drown You!! or
Join Us...We're Not Stoned All the Time

[Spazito]

1. Wow, was in the process of moving and missed this news completely!

It will be interesting to see the follow-up on this. Thanks for posting!

[tuvor]

2. "All safe" wasn't confirmed until this afternoon.

I was at work today, understanding that all were safe, and found out that a male friend of a lady I work with is a crewmember on that particular ferry. She was worried sick because she had received word that one man was actually NOT accounted for, after all.

Turns out, thank God, that some woman used her boyfriend's pass (or some such thing) to board the ferry, so for a time they were looking for a man who never was on board.

I wonder who was responsible for giving the thumbs-up to the media in the first place.

[tuvor]

3. Hmm. Maybe I spoke too soon.

CBC still saying, on the Web as well as radio, that two people are still unaccounted for.

And now I see that other sites like canada.com are saying the same thing.

[CHIMO]

4. RCMP takes over search for 2 missing ferry passengers

RCMP takes over search for 2 missing ferry passengers
Last Updated Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:47:33 EST
CBC News

BC Ferries has called off its search for two passengers of a ferry that sank early Wednesday in the choppy waters off the coast of British Columbia, handing the effort over to the RCMP.

The RCMP began treating the disappearance of Shirley Rossette and Gerald Foisey as a missing persons case late in the afternoon. The Canadian Coast Guard had been trying to track down their whereabouts.

Mark Stefanson, a spokesman for the ferry company, said there were a number of reports from passengers who said they saw Rossette and Foisey talking to people in Hartley Bay, where those aboard the Queen of the North ferry were taken after it sank.

The ferry corporation said the two are not among the 99 people on their way back to Prince Rupert, or who were airlifted to hospital Wednesday morning.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/03/22/bc_ferry060322.html

It looks like maybe everyone came out OK.
It seems unbelievable with two metre high waves.

I think that the crew and those that came out to help should be praised.

[MrPrax]

6. The two are still missing on Thursday

Rather strange...a friend saw them onto the boat and everything...and an eariler account placed them on the beach with the rest of the survivors...so a little bit disconcerning...

[Lisa]

8. some of the crew were reporting rapid flooding and blocked doorways

There may have been more damage onboard than originally suspected, if people were having problems exiting the compartments. I hope that those two passengers weren't trapped (or somehow incapacitated so they were unable to evacuate, and were overlooked during the crisis).

[MrPrax]

9. That seems to be the theory...

The slept through it and drown--might have been missed or simply didn't hear it...I'm sure this will be investigated, if and when, they find the bodies...I certainly hope they are alive and well and just stewing somewhere...

[Lisa]

10. if one or the other had been hearing-impaired or infirm ...

... or incapacitated by having taken sleeping tablets or Gravol, or something, earlier -- I could well imagine that scenario. One of the couple unable to move the other, and unwilling to abandon him/her. What a nightmare.

[MrPrax]

11. Yup...

that was also mentioned.

In BC, the radio media has been covering it all day and that seems to be one of the theories being floated...

The key to the investigation is going to focus probably on whether the crew did it's job basically--all reports indicate the crew and the folks at Hartley Bay went above and beyond duty and should be saluted.

:yourock:

[Lisa]

12. if the weather had been bad, and/or the Hartley Bay searchers ...

... hadn't gotten out there so quickly, there would have been a lot more casualties. The Coast Guard wasn't able to search the site until later in the day -- and while one hears stories about people floating for hours off the West Coast (like that guy who fell off the Vancouver ferry a while back), it probably would have been fatal to be out there too long, at this time of year and in that location.

[HEyHEY]

5. HA

Yeah, I noticed though in the afternoon when it came out two people are missing, they all stopped playing politics with it.

They thought they had a free-be.

Dicks.

EDIT: Turns out it was off course.

[MrPrax]

7. Yer in BC...

What the fuck is it with this province and it's ferries?

Why do they have so much problem with 'tech' that's thousands years old?...if they are not sinking, they are running into berths or smashing into pleasure craft...

Oh man...and the ONLY thing that happens is partisan rhetoric...

I propose they get one of those nice Scandanavian countries that seem to have NO problem running their much larger ferries in much more difficult waters to come over and show us how to do it...