But Seremaiah said those on the ground did not begin their own search until about 4pm on Saturday \u2013 more than 30 hours after the vessel sank.<\/p>\n
He said there was confusion and misinformation about what had happened, including reports the vessel was drifting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were awaiting for co-ordinates, but nothing came through until one of [the] surviving crew swarm ashore and alerted us that the ship has capsized.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seremaiah said the Government had conducted aerial searches because it believed the ship was still adrift.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not given any instructions at the time and in the end, I and other people went out to search,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said a local pilot spotted survivors and provided vessels with the co-ordinates needed for the rescue.<\/p>\n
The Vanuatu Government said 15 people have been found alive and one body has been recovered, with more than 30 people still missing at sea.<\/p>\n
Seremaiah said the 15 survivors had been taken to the main hospital in Luganville.<\/p>\n
He said another body was spotted but could not be recovered because of bad weather.<\/p>\n
The delayed search was made more difficult by rough conditions, Seremaiah said.<\/p>\n
Tui’s Shipping is the company which owns the MV Matui ferry. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday, during the search, the weather was really bad, swells were up to 2.5 to three metres, and again, because we left late, 4pm yesterday, and only a few hours before dark set in, it made it really difficult with the weather conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Families of people who were on the ferry have gathered in Santo seeking answers, he said.<\/p>\n
Seremaiah said many of those who went out to search were private citizens.<\/p>\n
The Vanuatu Government has said an investigation will examine why the vessel sailed despite strong marine wind warnings issued by the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-hazard Department on Friday.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister\u2019s public relations officer Kiery Mannaseh told local broadcaster VBTC News the Government was concerned the vessel had not heeded the warnings.<\/p>\n
The Government has said the sinking appeared to have resulted from strong winds and marine warnings not being heeded, with possible negligence including overloading of the vessel.<\/p>\n
Mannaseh said the Government would prioritise search and rescue before conducting its investigation.<\/p>\n
The Government has thanked private vessels and others involved in the rescue operation and said it would strengthen search and rescue mechanisms to better respond to future incidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Seremaiah said those on the ground did not begin their own search until about 4pm on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[295364,74,12864,9947,47117,42,6368,43,1870,38052,40,38,41,39,142351],"class_list":["post-599133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-30hour","tag-after","tag-criticises","tag-delay","tag-ferry","tag-headlines","tag-mp","tag-news","tag-search","tag-sinking","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vanuatu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}