Peru: 30 missing after boat sinks
A cargo boat sank in heavy rain around dawn today in the Ucayali River in Peru’s central jungle with an unknown number of passengers on board.
The Brian II, a 26-metre vessel, went down around 5.30am local time (10.30am Irish time), said Lt Raul Rosello in the Port of Ucayali in Pucallpa, 305 miles north-east of the capital, Lima.
He said naval authorities and police had not yet reached the accident site and could not confirm the number of fatalities or missing passengers and that conflicting information was coming in.
“We really do not know what happened,” Rosello said.
CPN radio reported the bodies of two adults and one child had been recovered by residents from Tahuania, a remote village, and that three survivors had been pulled from the water.
About 30 people were missing, the station said.
Rosello said the vessel left Pucallpa without registering its departure so authorities could not say how many passengers it carried.
