Tonga: Recovery of bodies 'too costly and risky'

The depth of the sunken ferry Princess Ashika means the recovery of the 93 bodies trapped inside would be a prohibitively costly, lengthy and dangerous process.

With the wreckage lying 110m below the surface, the bulk of the 15-strong New Zealand Navy team are returning home.

The ship, which sank on Wednesday last week in Tonga with 149 people on board, was located about 2km southwest of the Ha'apai group of islands. At least 93 people are presumed drowned.

New Zealand Diving and Salvage said extracting bodies from the wreck would be expensive and dangerous.

Managing director Dougal Fergus said diving beyond 50m required the use of an oxygen, helium and hydrogen mix and compression and decompression chambers.

The exploration of the boat, which would be carried out with a diving bell, would take three days. A further two weeks would be needed to salvage the bodies from the wreck.

He estimated such an operation would cost $25 million.

New Zealand gives $12 million in aid to Tonga each year while the Tongan Government budget for this year is $141 million.

"The cost of getting the ship to Tonga and putting down a diving bell, would be $700,000 to $800,000 a day. There are also the dangers of penetrating a vessel which is likely to have a lot of debris floating in it," Mr Fergus said.

New Zealand Navy divers hope to confirm the discovery of the Princess Ashika, which they have a sonar picture of, but poor weather is delaying deployment of a remote operated vehicle (ROV) to confirm the find.

The weather was unlikely to improve until Monday, said dive team head Lieutenant Commander Andrew McMillan.

"It's extremely frustrating for us," he said. "We're sitting around waiting when we could be out there positively identifying the ship and giving the Tongan people some answer on that."

A few of the 15-strong Navy team, including Commander McMillan, would stay on to operate the ROV from the dive ship HMNZS Manawanui, due to arrive in Tonga today.

Commander McMillan said the Tongan people were understanding of the delay; one man whose son was on board the Princess Ashika had said "he already had one deceased person on his conscience and he didn't want any more".

"He was very happy for us to be here and very happy that we had found the Princess Ashika but he didn't want us pushing the limits so that he would have any more bodies on his conscience, which is a lovely thing to say from someone who is in those circumstances."

Next week members of the Tongan community in Auckland will stage a memorial march to commemorate the dead. Carrying photos of lost relatives, a group plans to assemble at Aotea Square on Thursday before walking to the Maritime Museum to sprinkle flowers in the sea.

Tongan Attorney-General John Cauchi said a royal commission of inquiry into the sinking would publish interim findings by November 30.

- additional reporting: NZPA