Capsized ferry in India with 350 people on board

A ferry carrying 350 passengers sank, wednesday, feb 29, on a river located in north-eastern India because of a storm, police said, information relayed by Agence France-Presse. Police said the wreck would have been 40 dead and 160 missing. Shortly after, police reported that 50 people had survived by escaping by swimming. The fate of the other passengers so far remains unknown.

The double-decker ferry crashed into the river Brahmaputra in Assam, police said. He had to travel to a city of the neighboring district, some 300 kilometers. A witness said there were women and children aboard the ferry which was carrying farmers and locals. 'I could see people trained because the river current was very strong', told the same witness.

The Associated Press did, she, state of thirty-five dead and seventy-five missing persons while the Hindustan Times reports that the 'crowded ferry, carrying about three hundred passengers'. The national newspaper states that'' at least fifty of them were able to escape by swimming, but it is 'likely that many of them, including women and children, were drowned' .

Boats are a common mode of transport in India in the remotest areas and accidents are frequent due to ineffective safety standards and too many passengers.