Former Washington Ferry Capsizes in Tanzania!

Wrapped in blankets, survivors of the ferry accident are brought into Malindi port in Zanzibar Wednesday.

 

Former Washington ferry capsizes off Zanzibar (The MV Skagit, in a photo from the WSDOT's unsuccessful attempt to sell the boat on eBay)

12 people were killed when the MV Skagit capsized off the coast of Tanzania's island region of Zanzibar. Tanzania Officials say the death toll in a ferry accident off the coast of Tanzania has risen to..
31.

A government statement on Thursday also said that more than 100 passengers are still missing, and 136 have been rescued.

The ferry, the MV Skagit, is a former Washington state passenger-only ferry, which was sold last year and relocated to Tanzania.

It left Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania, on Wednesday en route to the island of Zanzibar, which is popular with tourists.

One accident survivor, Rashid Mohamed, said that heavy winds caused the boat to lose control and flip over just a few kilometers (miles) short of Zanzibar's main port.

Stormy weather is hampering rescue efforts and family members are thronging the port for news on missing loved ones.

The BBC reported the ferry carried more than 250 people when it sank. An AP photographer reported that it carried more than 290, including more than 30 children.

Washington State Ferries documents listed its passenger capacity at 250.

A safety officer with the Zanzibar Port Corp. said the vessel was overturned, bottom-up.

The Skagit was formerly a passenger-only vessel between Seattle and Vashon Island, but Washington State Ferries discontinued its foot-ferry routes and later sold the Skagit in 2011 for use in Tanzania. The MV Skagit and MV Kalama, built in 1989, were taken out of service in 2009 and eventually sold together for a total $400,000 to Scope Community Consultants of Port Coquitlam, B.C., according to an announcement by Washington State Ferries.

Washington state had tried before that to sell the Skagit and Kalama on eBay, for $300,000 each. The boats are 112 feet long and were supposed to last 25 years — so the Skagit would be in its final years of normal operating life.

Last September, more than 200 people were killed when a crowded ferry traveling between two islands of Zanzibar sank off the East African coast. Officials described it then as the worst accident in Tanzania's maritime history.

 By The Associated Press and Seattle Times staff

Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom.