(Kaieteur News) – The MV Barima left Georgetown at 3:15 p.m on Saturday, bound for Port Kaituma in Region One with 116 passengers and 17 crew members aboard. By 11:01 p.m., an air traffic control tower in Timehri had received a distress call. Within minutes, survivors say, the decades-old ferry was gone, flipped and sunk in the dark waters off the Pomeroon coast near Iron Punt.

As of Sunday morning, authorities confirmed 67 people rescued, with search and rescue teams from the Guyana Defence Force, Coast Guard, and private vessels continuing the search by air and sea.

President Irfaan Ali, currently out of the country, said he was “deeply distressed” by the capsizing and pledged that “no effort will be spared” in the rescue mission. Public Works Minister Juan Edghill confirmed the vessel carried 250 life jackets, two rigid life rafts, and six inflatable life rafts.