Divers combed the murky depths of a Colombian reservoir yesterday for the bodies of missing passengers from a pleasure boat that sank, killing seven people, as anxious relatives waited on the shore for news of their loved ones.
Authorities did not yet say what caused the four-deck Almirante to go down in the El Penol reservoir in the tourist town of Guatape, where Colombian and foreign tourists take leisure cruises.
The admiral in charge of the search, Juan Francisco Herrera, said on Blu Radio that extra divers were arriving to “search inside the boat to determine whether there are people trapped in there.”
The death toll climbed to seven with 13 people unaccounted for and 144 confirmed to have survived, the head of the National Disaster Risk Management Unit, Carlos Ivan Marquez, told a news conference.
Divers were searching as far as 40 meters underwater in “the deepest part of the reservoir,” where algae were hampering their progress, said regional government emergency official Margarita Moncada.
Most of those on the Almirante were rescued by other boats or escaped by themselves, officials said.
“It sank extremely quickly. It all happened in a few minutes,” a fire service captain involved in the rescue effort, Luis Bernardo Morales, said.
A storm overnight forced the search operation to be suspended and one diver was hurt in a lightning strike, Moncada said.
On the shore of the reservoir, Viviana Guzman waited for news of her mother Marta Gomez, a 69-year-old housewife.
The disaster unit chief Marquez later confirmed that Gomez had been found dead.
Speaking before that announcement, Guzman said her sister and seven-year-old nephew were rescued from the Almirante but her mother’s hand slipped out of their grasp.
“This is desperate. I don’t know where to turn,” she said, her voice broken and face haggard after spending the night searching in hospitals.
She said her sister Angela told her that there had been “very few life jackets” on board the Almirante.
Colombia’s Transport Minister Alejandro Maya said the company that ran the boat had its licence in order but that there had been various complaints after the accident about the shortage of life jackets.
“Through investigations by the ports and transport authority, we are working to establish what use was made of the life jackets by the crew and passengers,” he said.
The reservoir is 68kms from the city of Medellin and is one of Antioquia department’s main tourist draws.
Guatape fills with tourists on long weekends.
Monday was a public holiday in Colombia.
Visitors come for one- or two-hour cruises on the reservoir and to fish and jet-ski.

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