At least 64 people have died in a boat accident off the coast of northeastern Madagascar on Monday and a search operation is under way for 24 missing passengers, the maritime agency said on Wednesday. A helicopter flying four officials also crashed on its way to the shipwreck’s site, forcing a minister to swim some 12 hours for survival.
Fifty survivors were found, Madagascar’s Maritime and River Port Agency said.
The vessel, a cargo ship that was not authorized to transport people, was overloaded and water flooded the engine, said Mamy Randrianavony, director of operations at sea at the Maritime and River Port Agency (APMF).
Another port authority official, Adrien Fabrice Ratsimbazafy, said that after a "technical problem" affecting the engine, the boat found itself at the "mercy of the waves and foundered on a reef".
It sank late on Monday night with 138 people onboard, APMF said.
An investigation was opened in the island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa.
Helicopter heading to the site crashes, minister survives after 12-hour swim
A helicopter flying a Madagascan minister and three other officials to the site of the shipwreck also crashed on Monday. Serge Gelle, the country's secretary of state for police, and another fellow policeman managed to survive the helicopter crash after swimming some 12 hours to shore on Tuesday, authorities said.
A search was still ongoing for two other passengers after the crash Monday, whose cause was not immediately clear, police and port authorities said.
The two survivors reached land in the seaside town of Mahambo separately on Tuesday morning, apparently after ejecting themselves from the aircraft, port authority chief Jean-Edmond Randrianantenaina said.
In a video shared on social media, 57-year-old Gelle appears lying exhausted on a deck chair, still in his camouflage uniform. "My time to die hasn't come yet," says the general, adding he is cold but not injured.
Police chief Zafisambatra Ravoavy told AFP that Gelle had used one of the helicopter's seats as a flotation device.
