Survivors Say Bahrain Boat Was Unstable:

Posted By: Mark Smith

By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer

Bahrain television quoted the owners as saying the boat, an Arab dhow with high sides that had been modified to include two decks, was overloaded when it left port and capsized when most of its 126 passengers moved to one side. The vessel was long and narrow, and the extra decks could have made it top heavy.

Survivors said they believed most of those killed were dining in the lower deck of the al-Dana, and they described scenes of panic among the passengers thrown into the gulf.

"People were scared in the water. They were fighting with each other and screaming," Khalil Mirza, a Bahraini survivor, told The Associated Press.

U.S. Navy helicopters and divers stationed in Bahrain with the 5th Fleet ended their search for survivors early Friday after Bahrain authorities said they no longer were needed, a Navy spokesman, Cmdr. Jeff Breslau, told the AP. Television footage showed the boat capsized but not sunk, with rescue workers walking on its brown hull.

Sixty-seven people were rescued but two remained missing from the al-Dana, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Tarik al-Hassan said Friday. Some of the missing might have tried to swim ashore since the boat overturned less than a mile off the coast, he added.

"God willing, there will be other survivors," he said.

One of the survivors was an unidentified American woman working for the Navy base.

Al-Hassan declined to give a cause for the accident, saying there might be several factors. The ship's captain, a foreigner, survived and was being interrogated.

The victims included at least 17 Indians and 13 Britons, officials said.

The al-Dana was a modified version of the traditional dhow sailboat common throughout the Persian Gulf. An official with the vessel's owner, Al Kobaisi Travel and Tours, said it was an old dhow that had recently been refitted to host dinner cruises.

The official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the vessel could carry a maximum of 150 people.

The vessel is 85 feet long and 23 feet wide.

Dinner is served while the vessel is docked. Later, the vessel routinely sails for two hours close to the shore. The official said the vessel only had a small kitchen, and the food served to passengers was cooked on shore.

The passengers were celebrating the completion of the structure of Manama's World Trade Center in a party organized by several corporations, India's ambassador to Bahrain, Balkrishna Setty, told the AP.

Interior Minister Sheik Al Kahlifa said most of the passengers were employees of a Bahrain-based company.

"Things were going all right, people were dancing, people were having fun, but the boat was very crowded," Mirza said.

The boat then listed as it made a left turn soon after leaving the harbor, he said.

Mirza said he made a distress call using his cell phone. Bahrain's coast guard confirmed that a survivor made the distress call using a mobile phone.

Indian engineer Jai Kumar George told the AP from his hospital bed that the trouble started when the vessel made a sharp turn.

"The stability of the boat wasn't good," he said. "It was oscillating so strongly when other boats were stable."

He said he believed that most of those who died were on the lower deck eating dinner.

"There were people dancing (on the upper deck), then the boat started to tip," he said. "I fell on the floor, crashed through the safety bar and slipped into the sea."

Prime Minister Sheik Khalifah bin Salman Al Khalifah told Bahraini TV he directed the Interior Ministry to investigate if the ship was seaworthy, had a license to operate cruises and had followed safety regulations.

The 25-member trade center-project team of the South Africa-based Murray & Roberts Group was on board the boat, the company said on its Web site. Four were dead and six were unaccounted for. The shell of the two-tower trade center complex dominates Manama's waterfront.

"We are deeply shocked by this tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to all those who have been affected," Chief Executive Brian Bruce said.

Rescue teams brought bodies covered with white sheets to shore, and hospital workers hurried them to waiting ambulances. Scores of officials and relatives waited on the dock watching small rescue boats with flashing blue lights bring more bodies and survivors.

Television footage showed survivors, appearing to be in shock and with their hair still wet, squatting on the floor of a hospital. Many of them covered themselves with blankets. One male survivor was shown being treated for cuts to the head.

Survivors, some with blood streaming down their faces, hugged each other. Several wept uncontrollably as friends and relatives tried to calm them. Some survivors needed assistance as they disembarked from a rescue boat that brought them to shore.

The dead included 17 Indians, 13 British citizens and nationals of Pakistan, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, Germany and Ireland, al-Hassan said. Eleven had not been identified.

Bahrain is an oil-exporting and refining archipelago of 688,000 off the coast of Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Navy has had a presence there for more than 50 years.

The capsizing of the ship came about two months after an Egyptian ferry sank in the Red Sea, killing about 1,000 people. The vessel was en route from the Saudi port of Dubah to the Egyptian port of Safaga when it went down before dawn about 60 miles off the Egyptian coast.

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