THE Titanic is nowhere near the top of the list of deadliest shipwrecks in history. If the 1,500 who died in that disaster are tragic, what would we say about the 4,400 who died on the Doña Paz? When the Doña Paz sank in the Philippines in 1987 it became the deadliest maritime accident in history.
What caused it to sink? Why did so many die? How could so many lives have been lost on a ship that had a capacity of 1,500? We need answers.
The ship: The Doña Paz was built in Japan in the early 1960s and originally named Himeyuri Maru. As such, she rated a capacity of 608 passengers and plied the waters around Japan as a ferry and cargo carrier. She was sold to a shipping company in the Philippines in 1975 and renamed Don Sulpicio. In 1979 a fire broke out on board and the ship was gutted and beached. Insurers declared her a total loss and paid the shipping company. That should have been the end of her career, but it wasn’t.
The burned-out hulk was sold to investors who refurbished her and launched her as the Doña Paz. Somewhere along the way her carrying capacity was increased to over 1500 passengers, more than double the capacity when serving in Japan. The Doña Paz worked a passenger circuit running from Manila to Tacloban to Catbalogan and back to Manila.She made the run twice a week, once forward and once the reverse route. It was on the final leg of the return journey, from Tacloban to Manila, that disaster struck.
The accident: On December 20, 1987 the Doña Paz was off Dumali Point in the Tablas Strait. At around 10:30 p.m., as most of passengers slept, the ship collided with the Vector, an oil tanker sailing from Bataan to Masbate. The Vector carried roughly 280,000 gallons of petroleum which burst into flames, setting both ships afire.
Many people jumped overboard to escape the inferno only to learn that the sea itself was burning, a layer of oil having spread around the stricken ships. The crew did not help either. Passengers later recounted how crew members were more panicked than the passengers, looking to save their own lives rather than give assistance. The first part of the nightmare lasted two hours. The Doña Paz sank, followed by the tanker two hours after that. Left in the water were over 4,400 bodies and only 26 survivors, two of them from the tanker.
The truth: What happened that night was tragic and what followed was sickening. Finger pointing began in earnest as everyone tried to avoid the blame and pin it on someone else. Filipino authorities did not launch a rescue effort until sixteen hours after the collision. Although the ship’s manifest showed around 1,500 passengers on board, it was common practice for captains to earn extra money by selling passage for cash. The number of those illegally aboard the Doña Paz exceeded 2,800, pushing the death count upward to around 4,400. Of the 24 passengers to survive the sinking, only 5 were legally supposed to be there.
The owners of the ship announced that they would divide the insurance payout between the victims’ families, which amounted to under $500 per victim. Families of those who were on board illegally also demanded payment.
An investigation by the Philippine Coast Guard discovered that only one member of the crew was on the bridge of Doña Paz when the collision occurred. The rest, including the captain, were drunk, asleep, or watching a movie. Over on the tanker Vector the situation was even worse. That ship was operating without a license, had no lookout on watch, and had no qualified captain aboard at all. The courts ruled that the owners of the Vector were responsible for the accident and liable for any damages, but after years of court battles very little money has exchanged hands.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
