Major Philippine boat disasters
Bad weather among other factors has often brought disaster to sea travellers.
But bad weather, particularly during the typhoon season, as well as poor maintenance, overloading of vessels and lax enforcement of regulations, has often brought disaster to sea travellers.
Here is a list of major ferry disasters in the Philippines over the past two decades:
September 6, 2009: Five people are confirmed killed and more than 60 are left missing after the Superferry 9 tilts sharply and then sinks near Zamboanga.
May, 2009: Wooden-hulled MV Commander 6 cracks open and sinks just south of Manila, leaving 12 dead.
December, 2008: Ferry Maejan capsizes off the northern Philippines, leaving 30 dead.
November, 2008: Don Dexter Kathleen, small wooden-hulled ferry, capsizes in freak winds off the central island of Masbate, leaving 42 dead.
June, 2008: The Princess of the Stars ferry, owned by Sulpicio Lines, capsizes at the height of a typhoon. Of the 850 on board, only 57 survive.
February, 2004: A fire breaks out on Superferry 14 near Manila Bay, leaving 116 dead. Islamist groups later claim they planted a bomb aboard the vessel.
April, 2000: The overloaded ML Anahanda, which was supposed to be operating only as a cargo vessel, sinks off the island of Jolo. About 100 of the estimated 150 people on board die.
September, 1998: The ferry MV Princess of the Orient, sister ship of the Princess of the Stars and also owned by Sulpicio Lines, sinks off Batangas City. About 150 die.
December, 1994: A Singaporean freighter hits the ferry Cebu City in Manila Bay, leaving about 140 dead.
October 1988: The Dona Marilyn ferry, owned by Sulpicio Lines, sinks off the central island of Leyte, leaving more than 250 dead.
December, 1987: The Dona Paz, sister ship of Dona Marilyn, collides with an oil tanker off Mindoro island, leaving more than 4,000 dead in the world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster.