Maritime officials were investigating Sunday after a passenger ferry capsized in the southern Philippines killing 14 people and leaving 15 missing, officials and reports said.
The small wooden ferry MV Leonida II left the port of Surigao City on the northern tip of Mindanao island Saturday and was en route to a nearby island when it capsized.
The Office of Civil Defence said 14 passengers drowned, while 58 others were rescued. Radio reports from the region said 15 others remained missing and were the subject of a major search and rescue operation.
Those missing include a local town mayor and some of his council members.
It was not clear why the boat capsized, but officials were looking into whether it was overloaded.
Reporters said strong waves buffeted the vessel, causing its outriggers to break and forcing it to tilt and eventually turn over.
Survivors have told rescuers that "unusually rough waves" caused the accident, the Inquirer newspaper quoted Surigao City mayor Alfonso Cassura as saying.
"Based on what was told to us, the waves snapped the outriggers, tilted the boat and sank it, drowning the victims," Casurra said.
"Our rescuers don't have high tech decompressors that they could use in the operations. We are asking the national disaster council to provide us with one," he said.
Small passenger ferries are the backbone of provincial inter-island transportation in remote areas in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands. Accidents involving small motorised boats and ferries often happen due to overloading.
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