The Albany Gazette - Bodies of Philippines ferry fire victims brought ashore as toll hits 35

AFP watched as the bodies arrived by sea to begin the painstaking process of identification by forensic specialists, days after a fire tore through the M/V June Aster "in seconds", according to the coast guard.

The confirmed death toll is 35 people, counting 30 bodies included in the initial transfer from the wrecked ferry and five others recovered earlier, but officials have said more bodies remain aboard the vessel.

A local official told AFP that teams in Coron, Palawan had dug 70 graves on the instruction of disaster officials.

The one-metre (three-feet) deep graves are intended to hold the victims' remains until DNA testing is completed, Kristine Ablana, a tourism official serving as an official spokesperson, told reporters on Saturday.

Relatives will first be brought into a room to identify personal items that may have belonged to family members.

"Once someone is able to verify... that this photo or these belongings are indeed those of their relative, they will be asked to provide a DNA sample," Ablana said.

Authorities have not said exactly how many bodies remain aboard the stricken vessel, which sits grounded about 7.5 kilometres (4.5 miles) off the coast.

"The team has already went inside again to check... they have found (additional bodies). But we are still looking at them one by one," coast guard Commodore Geronimo Tuvilla told reporters.

"As of now, our objective is the respectful recovery of the remains."

Coast guard spokeswoman Noemie Cayabyab told AFP on Friday that the initial transfer had been capped at 30 bodies due to the capacity of the patrol vessel transporting them.

Five others had been confirmed dead in the immediate wake of the fire.

Thirty passengers, including two Chilean nationals, and 13 crew have been rescued, while about 50 people remain unaccounted for, according to the coast guard.

- 'Lost hope' -

Cayabyab said in a radio interview that the fire had begun in the cargo hold, then tore through the ship within seconds.

"From the time that they heard the loud explosion, the appearance of smoke, and then fire. It spread very quickly," she said of survivors' accounts.

"Everything happened in seconds," she said, adding that those who made it off the ship had not even had time to put on life jackets.

Near the pier where the bodies were to be returned, an emotional Josenit Mayo, 40, told AFP her daughter had been aboard the ferry, returning from the capital Manila for a family visit.

"She told me 'Mom, I want to go home as I'm missing my siblings,'" Mayo said. "She insisted she was lonely."

Myra Cabilan told AFP she had flown to Coron to find her missing brother, 40-year-old Rammel Gonzaga, who had taken the ferry from Manila on a business trip with his brother-in-law.

"His wife had just given birth a month ago. He was so happy he was given a daughter," Cabilan said, fighting back tears.

"At dawn, I still believed he survived. But he's still missing. I have lost hope."

The archipelago nation of 116 million has a long history of disasters involving the inter-island ferries that ply its seas.

Many rely on cheap and poorly regulated boats and ships for transport between the country's more than 7,000 islands, despite regular accidents.

In January, a triple-decker ferry carrying more than 340 people sank off the southern Philippines, killing at least 52 people.

(D.Sanchez--TAG)