A ferry with nearly 700 people aboard has sunk near the central Philippine port of Cebu after colliding with a cargo vessel, killing at least 17 people. Hundreds of others were rescued.

A wooden-hulled ferry with nearly 100 passengers capsized after being battered by big waves in the north-eastern Philippines, drowning at least 22 people and leaving more than 30 missing.

DIVERS found bodies in lifevests bobbing in airpockets of a giant sunken ferry in the Philippines yesterday, and an official said it would be a miracle if any of the hundreds of missing had survived.

Officials in the Philippines refused to give up hope of rescuing some of the 800 people missing after a ferry capsized during Typhoon Fengshen, even as high seas stalled efforts to get inside the vessel today.