Deaths feared on sunken Canadian ferry
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Mystery surrounded the fate of two people on Thursday who went missing and are now feared dead after an ocean-going ferry sank when it strayed onto the rocks on Canada's Pacific coast.
Police have begun a missing-persons investigation for the couple, who witnesses reported they saw on shore with the other 99 people rescued from the ferry Queen of the North on Wednesday, but have not been seen since.
BC Ferries now fears those reports were wrong and that the couple from the town of 100 Mile House, British Columbia, went down with the ship.
The Queen of the North is believed to have gone off course and struck a rock shortly after midnight local time, about 75 miles (120 km) south of Prince Rupert, on a trip down the Inside Passage on the northwest coast of British Columbia.
Police searched an island near the wreck and boats scanned the water on Wednesday, and there was no evidence the couple found their own transportation home from Hartley Bay -- the remote aboriginal fishing village that helped rescue survivors.
"I think we're left with one conclusion, which is that we now have to begin the very difficult process of finding if they are on the ship, " BC Ferries President David Hahn told CKNW radio in Vancouver.
"I would have to believe there is no other place for them to be at this time," Hahn said.
Hahn said the passengers who reported seeing the couple in Hartley Bay may have made a mistake because of the trauma of the accident in the early morning darkness
Investigators are trying to determine what caused the ship to veer off course on its scheduled 15-hour journey from Prince Rupert, which is near the southern tip of the Alaska panhandle, to Port Hardy on northern end of Vancouver Island.
The rugged wilderness of the Inside Passage is viewed by thousands of tourists every summer on cruise ships that run from Vancouver and Seattle to Alaska.
On Thursday, environmental crews were trying to contain a fuel spill from the 410-foot (125-metre) ship, which disappeared completely below the water, and the 16 vehicles that were on board.
The sinking of the Queen of the North is also causing economic concern for communities along the coast and on the Queen Charlotte Islands, which depend on ferries for transportation and to deliver most supplies.
A replacement vessel was undergoing several weeks of scheduled repairs at the time of the accident, but is now being rushed back into service.
The sinking happened on same day the province was scheduled to approve funding to replace the Queen of the North, which was built in 1969 and has a hull design that is considered less safe by modern shipbuilding standards.
