It is an all too common story, an overloaded and poorly maintained ferry in an impoverished nation capsizes, drowning many of its passengers.  It happens so often it that it is often not reported beyond the local press.  This morning at three AM local time, a ferry boat running between Zanzibar and Pemba, Tanzania sank after capsizing.  Update #2:  606 of the passengers have been rescued and 192 bodies have been recovered.  The ferry was reportedly loaded with twice the allowed weight of cargo. The ferry had an approved passenger capacity of 600 and was carrying close to 800 passengers.  This is the third ferry to capsize with a loss of life in the vicinity in the last year.

Ferry disaster in Zanzibar, Tanzania kills hundreds including tourists

The ferry was reportedly often overloaded with passengers and cargo but authorities, though aware of the practice, did apparently little to step in and enforce loading limits as it was one of the few links between the two islands. New ferries, promised time and again by the Tanzanian government have for long been awaited and according to a source in Dar es Salaam ‘…this was an accident waiting to happen. Backpackers and budget tourists often use the ferry to get to Pemba in the absence of other affordable transport and the wananchi of course must use it, they have no choice at all to get from one island to the other. There has always been talk of mechanical problems but nothing ever came of it. The sinking of the ferry exposes a great weakness in our system of supervision and regulating marine transport and who really knows what went on behind the scenes to have this ship continue to operate and officials looking the other way’.

 In January this year and in May last year two overloaded boats sank in the vicinity too, with dozens of passengers drowned in both instances, indicating that regulations were either lax or not enforced, laying blame squarely on the ferry operators and the authorities charged with supervising ocean transport.