Rescuers fought rough seas and howling winds Wednesday in a desperate search for the few survivors from an Estonian ferry that capsized and sank with nearly 1,000 people aboard. More than 830 were presumed dead.
The loss of the ferry Estonia overnight in the Baltic Sea was one of the worst maritime disasters in recent years.At the rescue coordination headquarters in Turku in southwestern Finland, operations chief Raimo Tillikainen said 126 people survived the numbing 54-degree waters. He said 42 bodies had been recovered by late afternoon and 796 people were missing and presumed dead.
Estonian authorities said the ferry's final radio message just after midnight was: "We are sinking! . . . The engines have stopped!"
There was no immediate official explanation for what caused the 515-foot vessel to capsize while sailing from Tallinn, Estonia, toward Stockholm, Sweden.
The Swedish news agency TT said two Swedish maritime inspectors criticized the vessel's seaworthiness shortly before it set out from Tallinn on Tuesday evening. The inspectors found problems with seals on front-loading doors that are designed to keep water out during rough seas, TT said.
One survivor, Henrik Sillaste, a ship's engineer on the Estonia, told The Associated Press he saw water leaking through the front cargo door. He said water quickly built up in the bottom of the ship and it began listing.
"The water reached my knees," said Sillaste.
It was not known whether the ferry's captain or other crew members survived. Tiilikainen, a Finnish coast guard official, said the ship carried 776 passengers and 188 crew members.
The Estonia had four or five bars, bands for dancing, three restaurants, gambling machines, a sauna and swimming pool, and shops. Many Estonians took the ship as a holiday on daytrips or weekends to Sweden, but the stormy weather forced an early end to the evening's partying, survivors said.
"I was sleeping, and suddenly everything was falling off the table," said Margus Kermet, a truck driver from Estonia. He rushed out of his cabin on the fourth deck and pushed his way past panicky passengers to get outside.
High waves and winds topping 56 mph hindered rescue operations about 25 miles from the Fin-nish island of Uto off the southwestern coast.
"We saw about 40 life rafts. Unfortunately, most of them were empty," said Stefan Carneros, pilot of a Swedish rescue helicopter. He said waves in the area were up to 20 feet high.
More than 500 of the passengers reportedly were Swedes, and at least 150 were Estonians.
The Estonia started sinking about 12:30 a.m. and sent out its distress signal. Some news reports said the ship sank in five minutes, while others put the time at closer to 30 minutes.
"A vessel of this size should have no problem in these winds," maritime inspector Esa Saari said in the Finnish port of Turku, the base for rescue efforts.
Some officials speculated that trucks and cars on board may have broken loose and that their shifting weight caused the capsize. A spokesman for the ship's owners told Estonian radio that authorities believed both engines stopped simultaneously, leaving the ferry vulnerable to the wind and waves.
"I woke up as the ship was heavily tilted to the left," one of the survivors, Neeme Kaik, told radio station KUKU in Estonia. "There were huge waves. I got dressed as fast as I could. I ran out of my cabin to the deck to see what was going on."
He said some passengers were running on the stairs and others were still in their cabins as he left the Estonia.
"There was no activity among the crew, and I did not hear any messages. I grabbed a life jacket myself, and then the boat fell on its left side completely, with the chimney hitting the water. The engines did not work," he said. "I managed to jump into a rubber boat with three other people."
At least a dozen survivors were rescued by the ferry Mariella, that ship's information officer, Per Erik Sederqvist, said.
At least 10 survivors were taken aboard the ferry Symphony, Harry M. Whipple, an American passenger on the Symphony, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Whipple, the publisher of The Cincinnati Enquirer, said he saw at least 30 black-and-orange inflatable rafts bobbing in the water, six to 10 of which had capsized.
Twenty survivors were flown by helicopter to Turku. Two were in critical condition, suffering hypothermia with body temperatures as low as 81 degrees when they arrived, said Dr. Juha Niinikoski at Turku university hospital.
"We think we have saved the patients," he said.
The deadliest maritime accident the past decade was the sinking of the ferry Dona Paz in the Philippines in 1987, when 1,749 people drowned.