Nine Dead, 10 Missing in Amazon Boat Wreck

Brazilian ferry collided with barge in dark of lunar eclipse
By Will McCahill,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 21, 2008 1:59 PM CST
Nine Dead, 10 Missing in Amazon Boat Wreck
Sunlight rises over the Amazon river in this undated file photo. "Rescue teams recovered the bodies of one woman and two children and are searching for another 20 passengers who we fear have also drowned," said one State Spokesman. "The chances of finding them alive are remote."   (Wikimedia Commons)

Nine people died, and 10 more are missing and feared dead after a ferry in Brazil sank this morning after colliding with a barge on the Amazon River, the AP reports. Authorities, who rescued 92 passengers near the town of Itacoatiara, say  "visibility was very poor" at the time of the accident due to the lunar eclipse.

"The chances of finding them alive are remote," an official said of the missing passengers, who are assumed to have been asleep inside the two-story ship and unable to escape before it capsized. The rescued passengers were sleeping in hammocks on deck, one official reported. No injuries were reported on the barge, which was hauling fuel tanks and sustained no damaged. (More Brazil stories.)

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