The sinking of a mini ferry in Gabon, leaving Libreville to reach Port-Gentil, left “at least two dead and 28 people missing”, a port authority official told AFP on Thursday, who wished remain anonymous.
After setting sail from the passenger ship, “the crew reported a leak between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.,” Royal Cost Marine said Thursday morning on its Facebook page.
“This intrusion led to a loss of control of the boat. The authorities have been alerted and the emergency services are on the scene, the passengers are being rescued”, according to the company.
At the Port Mole pier from where the boat left with 151 passengers on board, six ambulances were lined up on the quay alongside a fire engine. At midday, the first motorized canoes began to bring back the survivors, noted an AFP journalist.
The Prime Minister, Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, and the Minister of the Interior, Lambert Noel-Matha are currently on site.
A young woman was carried on a stretcher under a survival blanket to an ambulance, an AFP journalist noted. Other survivors also disembarked from a barge from the oil logistics company Peschaud, which took part in the rescue, to applause and cries of joy.
Survivors are taken directly to ambulances to receive first aid and a tent is being set up to accommodate them.
Faced with the stretchers lined up on the quay, the families, eaten away by anxiety, are kept away. They try to climb on the barriers that block access to the platforms hoping to see one of their relatives.
According to the families present, a crisis unit was set up Thursday morning.