About 120 feared dead in Ghana boat capsize

Accra, Apr 11: About 120 people were feared drowned after a boat packed with passengers and goods capsized on Ghana's Lake Volta, one of the world's largest reservoirs, police in the West African country said yesterday.

''There were 150 passengers on board but only 30 have been rescued. The rest are feared dead,'' police spokesman Kwesi Ofori said. He said the accident happened on Saturday and a search party was still looking for survivors.

''Police, fishermen and the fire service are involved in the search,'' he said.

Ofori said the boat was probably overloaded. He said it hit a stump as it travelled across the lake, which covers 8,500 square km (3,275 square miles), more than three times the size of Luxembourg.

He said the boat had been travelling from Dudzome, in the Afram Plains region, to Abotoase further east. The bodies of three young children had been recovered from the accident site.

Local media reported that the passengers were being moved after settling illegally in a forestry reserve in Dudzome and had been forced with their property and livestock onto a boat that should carry only 70 people.

Local politicians contacted by Reuters said they were on the way to the accident site to ascertain why the vessel had been overloaded.

The lake's dam produces electricity for most of the West African nation of 22 million people. The lake was formed in 1957, as the former British colony became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence.

Many of the vessels plying trade and passenger routes on lakes and off Africa's shores are poorly maintained, with accurate passenger manifests a rarity.

An overloaded wooden boat carrying three times the number of passengers it was built for sank off Djibouti last week, killing at least 109 people in one of the Red Sea nation's worst disasters.

At least 127 people drowned last month after a wooden boat travelling from Nigeria to Gabon broke up in high seas and sank off Cameroon's Atlantic port of Kribi. Survivors said more than twice the registered 150 passengers had been onboard.

Africa's worst shipping disaster in several years took place in February off Egypt, when 1,026 people died when a ferry sank on its way to Safaga from Saudi Arabia. There were 388 survivors.

REUTERS