Search teams have recovered the bodies of 160 dead from a Congo River ferry collision and are searching for more than 100 others missing, authorities said on Thursday.
Of roughly 500 aboard, 222 are known to have survived the collision of two ferries in a storm, said Catherine Nzuzi, Congo’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs.
The disaster happened on Tuesday evening near the town of Inongo; news reached the capital, Kinshasa, 450km away, only late on Wednesday.
Authorities said both ferries were overloaded, but said bad weather was the main cause of the accident.
”There was a violent storm that provoked the collision,” Nzuzi said.
Residents of the town of Inongo were helping bury the dead in mass graves, authorities said.
Congo’s government reopened the river to commercial traffic in April after closing it during the country’s nearly five-year war, fearing rebels could use it to move on Kinshasa.
Africa’s impoverished residents often use overcrowded, unsafe boats to travel around a continent marked by poor roads and expensive flights. — Sapa-AP