By
ROYSTON DRAKE and BERT WILKINSON
CHARITY, Guyana (AP) — One of the survivors of a ferry that capsized in Guyana over the weekend with as many as 179 people aboard said she lost four of her grandchildren in the chaotic disaster and that the ship seemed to sink in an instant.“I was fighting for my life. The boat sunk in minutes, seconds,” Helena Moonsammy recalled, saying that boxes fell on her as she tried to save her grandchildren. “I told my grandbabies to cling on to anything as I hollered for them. I prayed all night and was in the water for nine hours.”At least 69 people have been rescued after the MV Barima sank late Saturday off the Essequibo coast, and 27 bodies have been found so far — four of them children, Prime Minister Mark Phillips said. But the death toll is expected to rise dramatically, he said. Though the ship’s manifest listed 116 passengers and 17 crew, authorities now believe as many as 179 people were aboard, Phillips said. An investigation into the capsizing of the 87-year-old ferry is underway. It began taking on water during a trip Saturday from the capital, Georgetown, to Port Kaituma in northwestern Guyana, near Venezuela.
“Brace yourself for the coming days,” President Irfaan Ali said in a national address. “It is going to be a difficult period for us as a people and as a country. May God watch over Guyana and bring us through this horrible experience.”
