After a ferry crash, passengers who almost drowned in Lake Victoria during an accident said that their rescue has been a complete miracle even when the details of the incident are unfolding. The incident has been blamed on the bad weather conditions.
The officials of Kenya Maritime had investigated the incident of Saturday evening stating that Ferry-MV Ringiti had disintegrated into 3 parts and as a result of the turbulent waves caused by the bad weather, and it sank. The locals call the ferry the ‘Water Bus’. This is because it is just like a bus that was sailing from Mageta Island when this incident had taken place at around 5 pm.
According to reports, the total passengers who have been onboard are still unknown. The beach managers and the fishermen who have been associated with the rescue operation have mentioned that they have managed to rescue 20 people among which 5 are crew members and 15 are passengers. According to KMA officials and ferry management, only 15 passengers had been on board.
According to a police report that had been issued earlier, the number was put to eight and it said there were no casualties and everybody on board had been rescued. Many images have been published which show the passengers clinging on to the disintegrated and sinking ferry. You can safely say they won’t be booking a sailing holiday anytime soon!?
The passengers have recounted this as a harrowing ordeal. A person who helped in rescuing his fellow crew members and also the passengers, Otieno said that this journey from the Mageta had been pretty smooth but suddenly he heard a bang. This was then followed by the cries of passengers who had been shouting that they were sinking.
Otieno said that it was a disaster when the passengers started jumping in water and others had been wailing to be rescued. He said that some of the passengers on the ferry didn’t have life jackets. So, the crew swung into action. They started giving life jackets as they rescued the ones who had jumped into the water. Otieno had been the driver of the vessel for the last 5 years. His account of the incident matched that of Martin Siso who has been a witness. Siso has given a credit to the crew for responding so promptly and helping in rescuing the passengers on the vessel.
Siso said that they had been on a passenger boat to Mageta from Usenge when they saw the water-bus between Sirigombe and Usenge. According to him, the vessel had been unstable as it suffered the turbulent waves. Jacob Owaki and Siso had been navigating a commercial motorboat that helped with the rescue efforts.
According to the Chief, every traveler has been rescued and they have been taken to Kabarua beach and thereafter to Mageta Health Center. Owaki said that the rescue proved to be successful simply because the ferry had life jackets on board. If it didn’t, the story would have been pretty different. On Sunday, a team of Beach Management Units, KMA, and Kenya Coast Guard Service performed an operation for retrieving the remaining parts of the vessel.
