At least 24 people, including two Europeans, perished and many more remain missing after a ferry capsized off the coast of Zanzibar on Wednesday, government officials said.
The vessel, which was officially carrying almost 290 passengers and crew, including more than 30 children, went down in choppy waters near the Indian Ocean archipelago after leaving Tanzania's commercial capital Dar-es-Salaam.
"We have so far received 24 bodies, including two Europeans," Zanzibar's transport minister Hamad Masoud Hamad told journalists gathered at the main hospital after the sinking of the MV Kalama.
It was the second such ferry disaster in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in less than a year.
"The rescue operations are continuing... 124 people have already been found alive and we hope that others will be saved," Tanzania's Interior Minister Emmanuel Nchimbi said.
Zanzibar is famed both for its white-sand beach resorts and for Stone Town, the old quarter of Zanzibar, which is a UNESCO heritage site, and is a popular tourist desination. An AFP journalist at the port on the main island of the Indian Ocean archipelago said he had seen 55 survivors, soaking wet, on the quayside.
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