FIVE people were killed and three others are still missing after a sand barge collided with a ferry in Guangzhou on Friday.

The collision occurred at 9:30 a.m. on the Zhujiang River near Hedong Bridge in the provincial capital of Guangdong. The ferry sank in minutes, with all 34 people on board. Rescuers pulled 26 people from the water while another eight were missing.

A 10-hour search recovered five bodies at 10:20 p.m. Two of the dead were women, while another two were the captain and a sailor from the ferry, said an official with the Guangdong Provincial Maritime Affairs Bureau.

There was no apparent damage to the barge.

At a media conference Saturday, Zhang Jun, a maritime official who took part in the rescue, said the ferry should have made way for the barge which was running on the ferry’s right side according to international martitime rules.

“The rules are similar to land traffic regulations. It is easy to understand that a car changing directions or lanes should take most of the responsibility in an accident when another is driving through because the latter has the right of way,” Zhang said. “The ferry crew may have been off-guard because they knew their routine work so well.”

He also said the radar on the barge had not been turned on.

“The ships were only 50 meters apart when they sighted each other. But it was too late,” he said.

The ferry company rebutted accusations that the boat had been beyond its service life, a Southern Metropolis Daily report said yesterday.

“It was less than 20 years old while the service life should be between 24 and 30 years,” a company source said.

(Li Jing)