{"id":15782,"date":"2018-09-20T19:24:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T19:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15782"},"modified":"2018-09-20T19:24:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T19:24:23","slug":"tanzania-ferry-capsize-dozens-killed-as-rescue-effort-under-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15782","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania ferry capsize: Dozens killed as rescue effort under way"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"104\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Dozens of people have died in Tanzania when a passenger ferry capsized in the south of Lake Victoria, an official said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">While it wasn&#8217;t confirmed, one official said it is believed more than 200 people were on board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;According to reports that President John Magufuli has just received from the authorities in Mwanza, the toll now stands at more than 40 dead,&#8221; Gerson Msigwa, the president&#8217;s spokesman, said on state television.<\/p>\n<p>Tanzania&#8217;s Electrical, Mechanical and Services Agency, which operates ferry services, said the boat known as MV Nyerere sank Thursday afternoon near Ukara Island.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"imagecontainer item\" data-image-url=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2018\/9\/20\/531746105407453e98cf439661eaacba_18.jpg\">\n<table class=\"image\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2018\/9\/20\/531746105407453e98cf439661eaacba_18.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"caption\">\u00a0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;There were more than a hundred passengers on board when the ferry sank. It is feared that a significant number have lost their lives,&#8221; said George Nyamaha, the head of Ukerewe district council.<\/p>\n<p><span>State radio said 26 people had been rescued.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Al Jazeera&#8217;s Catherine Soi, reporting from Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya, said the ferry was carrying cargo when it went down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we also know from witnesses that the ferry appeared to be overloaded. It has a capacity of 100 people and sources say it had carried up to 500 people,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ferry was affected by bad weather as well. The rescue operations are ongoing but are hampered because its night time now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 1996, a ferry disaster on Lake Victoria in the same region killed at least 500 people.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, 145 people died in a ferry disaster in Tanzania&#8217;s semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, in the Indian Ocean, on a vessel that was overcrowded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE: <span>Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens of people have died in Tanzania when a passenger ferry capsized in the south of Lake Victoria, an official said on Thursday. While it wasn&#8217;t confirmed, one official said it is believed more than 200 people were on board. &#8220;According to reports that President John Magufuli has just received from the authorities in Mwanza,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}