wedding news today turned into mourning as 20 died in a wedding boat crash

Boat crash news as wedding guest perished in Myanmar

At least no fewer than 20 people were killed when a boat carrying dosens of wedding guests clashed with a river barge in Western Myanmar, authorities said on Saturday in a news source, with more feared drowned as rescuers huntfor the missing. The boat, called “Silver Star” in Burmese, sank Friday evening in a river near Pathein, a port city west of commercial capital Yangon.

It was believed to be carrying around 60 passengers on their way home from a wedding ceremony, according to a local police officer's information. Of the dead, officials said 16 were women and four were men. “They were crossing to the other side of the river after attending a wedding in Pathein. Most of them were relatives from the same village,” said the policeman.

Both ships were unlit when they clashed in the middle of the river, he added. “We approximate nine people are still missing,” it was also gathered  that some 30 people had been rescued alive the night before. Local media photos revealed frenzied scenes as rescuers worked in the dark Friday night to wheel stretchers away from the river and lay bodies onshore.

 Authorities resumed the search operation on Friday morning, the police officer said, though no bodies had been found by midday. “We will do search and rescue for the whole day.”
deadly boat accidents are common in Myanmar, a poor country with rudimentary transport and weakly enforced safety regulations.

Vessels ferrying people along the country’s coastline and rivers are often dangerously overloaded, and accidents can have staggering death tolls. It can also take several days for all bodies to be recovered. Last October 73 people, including many teachers and students, drowned when their overloaded vessel capsized in central Myanmar on the Chindwin River. Around 60 people also died in March 2015 when their ferry sank in rough waters off of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.