Hopes are fading of finding any more of the dozens missing for almost two days after a busy ferry sank off the coast of Tonga.
Maritime rescue officials said after nightfall today they were considering calling off the search for survivors, as navy divers flew from Australia and New Zealand to comb the wreck for bodies.
Only two deaths have been confirmed, and the 64 missing are presumed dead.
That figure kept rising today as investigators learned more about how many people were aboard when the Princess Ashika went down around midnight on Wednesday while carrying passengers and cargo from the capital, Nuku'alofa, to outlying northern islands.
Police Chief Inspector Sokopeti To'ia said the latest count of those aboard the ferry was 120. Of those, 54 have been rescued - one more than previously counted - and two bodies have been recovered, leaving 64 missing. The dead were a British man living in New Zealand and a Polynesian woman.
Five foreigners were among the missing, four were French and German - the breakdown was not exactly known - and one Japanese, she said. Seven children were unaccounted for.
The chances of finding any of the missing alive "are not great," Police Commander Chris Kelly said earlier today.
The cause of the disaster was not known. Survivors described the ferry rocking violently from side to side and waves breaking the lower deck before it went under, though officials said weather conditions were mild.
State-owned Shipping Corp. of Polynesia said the ferry was licensed to carry 200 passengers plus crew, suggesting it was not overcrowded.
Tongan Transport Minister Paul Karalus said the ferry was recently inspected, and there was "no question about its seaworthiness." Veteran democracy campaigner 'Akilisi Pohiva has claimed the ferry was unsafe and should not have been operating.
Many of those missing were women and children who had been given cabins below deck and may have been trapped inside when the ferry sank about 55 miles northeast of Nuku'alofa, officials say.
Most of the male passengers remained on the upper decks during the journey, and the survivors so far are all men.
Two days of searching by sea and air has found no sign of survivors since a few hours after the ferry capsized. Authorities suspended the search at nightfall Friday and were not sure they would resume it.
Tonga, an archipelago of 169 islands and 120,000 people in the South Pacific about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand, is regularly buffeted by destructive cyclones and lies near an earthquake faultline.
AP