Searchers find 160 bodies after Congo ferry crash

Search teams have recovered the bodies of 160 people killed when two ferries collided in a storm on a Congo River tributary and…

Search teams have recovered the bodies of 160 people killed when two ferries collided in a storm on a Congo River tributary and are searching for more than 100 others missing.

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo locating a ferry accident on Tuesday which killed at least 160 and a train derailment on Wednesday which left 11 people missing

Of the roughly 500 on board the ferries, 222 are known to have survived the collision, said Ms Catherine Nzuzi, Congo's minister of humanitarian affairs.

The disaster happened on Tuesday evening near Inongo, a town on an offshoot of the vast Central African nation's main inland waterway, the Congo River.

News reached the riverside capital, Kinshasa, 300 miles away, late on Wednesday. Authorities said both ferries were overloaded, but said bad weather was the main cause of the accident.

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Congo's government reopened the Congo River to commercial traffic in April after closing it during the country's nearly five-year war, fearing rebels could use it to move on Kinshasa.

Africa's worst-ever ferry accident came on September 26th, 2002, when Senegal's state-run ferry, carrying nearly four times its intended capacity, overturned in a gale in the Atlantic Ocean. Only 60 survived and 1,863 perished when the MS Joolacapsized, making the accident more deadly than the sinking of the Titanic.