Divers Recover 123 Bodies From Ferry Interior

Divers today recovered about 123 bodies from the “horrific” interior of the partially submerged British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise.

Olivier Vanneste, governor of the province of West Flanders, said 63 bodies were retrieved overnight and about 60 more were brought ashore after dawn. That brought the number of confirmed dead from the ferry disaster to about 184.

Sixty-one bodies were recovered in the days immediately after the accident.

Vanneste said none of the bodies brought out of the ferry today had been positively identified. There was no immediate explanation why he gave an approximate figure for the number of bodies recovered in the daytime operation.

Divers ‘Going Full Speed’

Roger van Ransbeeck, a spokesman at the Zeebrugge naval base where the bodies were taken for identification, said 19 British and Belgian divers were “going full speed” in the effort to recover an estimated 11 corpses believed still inside the vessel.

The ferry capsized March 6 and was righted Tuesday.

“It is absolutely disastrous and horrific inside,” said Cmdr. Jack Birkett, who was directing the British Royal Navy diving team.

“There is virtually nothing remaining of how you would expect a ship to be. There is thick, gooey, black mud and it is putrid,” he said.

Guy Cauwenbergh, leader of the Belgian divers, said he doubted that all 134 bodies believed to have been inside the ferry when the diving operation began Tuesday night could be removed before the ferry was made water-tight, refloated and towed back into Zeebrugge harbor.

Efforts to refloat the Townsend Thoresen vessel, whose keel is resting on the bottom in about 30 feet of water, were to begin later today.