800 LOST AT SEA IN PHILIPPINES

By MANNY MOGATO, Reuters

June 23, 2008

CEBU, Philippines - More than 800 people are missing from a capsized passenger ferry that sank during a typhoon in the central Philippines, but 32 people were reported to have miraculously survived.

The MV Princess of Stars sank two miles from Sibuyan island on Saturday as Typhoon Fengshen roared past.

Twenty-eight survivors made it to a small coastal village after drifting at sea for more than 24 hours in a rubber boat, local radio reported.

Two others originally on board the life raft drowned in large swells.

Four others survived apart from the group of 28, while only four were confirmed dead.

Philippine Coast Guard boats battling winds and high waves were scouring the area around the nearly 24,000-ton ferry, and divers were expected to enter the vessel when the seas calmed. A helicopter and plane were also en route.

"We are checking whether there were people trapped inside the ferry," Vice Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo, the head of the Coast Guard, said. "We might have to drill holes so our divers can access it."

Typhoon Fengshen, with maximum gusts of 120 mph, has killed at least 155 people in central and southern Philippines, with the western Visayas region, famed for its beaches and sugar plantations, the worst affected.

The storm pounded the archipelago, damaging thousands of houses and displacing tens of thousands of people.

"We got hit real bad this time," said Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines' Red Cross.

The typhoon was over the South China Sea late last night and was expected to lurch north toward Taiwan in the next few days.