Up to 400 people were feared drowned last night after a crowded ferry sank off the western coast of Haiti yesterday morning. Some reports said about 300 people were thought to have swum to safety. The ferry, Fierte Gonaviene, sank at dawn between Montrouis, some 50 miles north-west of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, and its destination, the Ile de la Gonave, in Port-au-Prince Bay.
Early reports said 64 bodies had so far been washed ashore.
Haiti's coastguard initially reported that as many as 700 to 800 people were on the ferry, of whom 300 to 400 had drowned, according to the US coastguard service in Miami, Florida.
"The boat took on water, then flipped over. Maybe 40 people who were sitting on top, as I was, fell into the water. I don't think anyone sitting inside survived," a survivor told the local station, Radio Metropole.
A St Marc police spokesman, Mr Herald Enock, said the boat was just 50 yards from the Montrouis wharf when it sank.
"The only people who survived were the people sitting on the top. The rest of the people were in three compartments inside the boat and they could not get out," he said.
"You could hear the people calling for help from the shore," a doctor told Radio Metropole.
Radio stations in Haiti said most of the passengers were local peasants and vendors who used the ferries for trade between Haiti and its offshore island. The ferries are said to be in a poor state of repair.
Police in St Marc, on the Haitian mainland, estimated the number of passengers at 600 and said their officers were helping in the rescue. Haiti deployed three coastguard boats in the search for survivors.
UN personnel from the Haitian peacekeeping mission were also assisting.
The US coastguard said one of its cutters was also at the scene following a request from the Haitians.
"We have sent a helicopter, Zodiac boats and medical supplies to the scene," said a UN spokeswoman. "Pakistani and Canadian troops are carrying out the rescue mission. There were a lot of people on that boat, although we don't have an exact figure."
The Haitian Red Cross secretary general, Mr Regis Marc, said early today that only 30 people were confirmed to have survived.
The sinking of the Fierte Gonaviene is the latest in a series of calamities which reflect the rudimentary nature of transport and safety regulations on the impoverished Caribbean island. Local land transport systems, which have never been good, are reported to have deteriorated in recent years, compelling a large dependence on sea transport.
This is the third major tragedy of this kind off Haiti in recent years. In 1993, an overloaded ferry carrying 1,000 people sank off the south of the country, drowning at least 700.
In March last year, more than 100 passengers died in another sinking off Cap DameMarie, in the south-west.