Death toll in Philippine ferry fire rises to 76 as rescuers recover more remains

Philippine rescuers recovered 41 more charred remains from a ferry fire, authorities said on Saturday, raising the death toll to 76 and leaving 13 people unaccounted for, as forensic teams faced the daunting task of identifying the victims.

That painstaking process had already begun after 30 bodies recovered on Friday were brought to a port in Coron town, where temporary tents were set up for forensic teams to process and identify the dead.

Responders in protective suits were seen carrying black body bags from a Coast Guard vessel into the tents as anxious family members waited nearby for news of their loved ones.

One of them was Anelyn Magbanua, 37, whose husband was returning to Coron after visiting their children in Manila when the ferry, which was carrying more than 130 people, caught fire near the end of its more than 20-hour journey.

"I hope he is not among the dead being brought off the ship. I hope he is alive and has only drifted to another island," she said.

"It will be very difficult to accept if he's really gone," she said. "He loved his children very much."

Firefighters entered the ferry for the first time on Friday after extinguishing the blaze more than a day after it broke out, giving authorities access to areas that had been hard to reach because of thick smoke and extreme heat. The Coast Guard said burnt remains were discovered in the ferry's economy accommodation section.

Images released by the Coast Guard showed the scale of the destruction inside the vessel, with rows of steel bed frames twisted by intense heat and blanketed in ash. Some photographs appeared to show skeletal remains among the debris.

Philippine Coast Guard official Geronimo Tuvilla said at a press conference on Saturday that the immediate priority was to identify the victims and determine the cause of the fire.

A statement from the Maritime Industry Authority, citing survivor accounts, said two explosions were heard inside the vessel shortly before the fire broke out.

One survivor interviewed by GMA News recalled seeing a small amount of smoke that turned into a fire and quickly spread through the ferry within seconds.

Questions also remained over the fate of the vessel's captain. Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Noemie Cayabyab said at the same press conference that she had received information that he was alive, but added that the captain's name was not on the list of 43 confirmed survivors.

The fire is the latest in a string of deadly maritime accidents in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands where millions rely on ferries and small boats to travel between provinces and islands.