Ferry search

DIVERS returned to a half-sunken, gutted ferry yesterday to search for 184 passengers missing since a fire aboard the ship last week, as the Philippines government played down claims by a Muslim militant group that it had planted a bomb that caused the blaze.

Coastguard Commodore Wilfredo Tamayo said divers, medical teams and firefighters probing the wreckage of the Superferry 14 in the shallow waters of Manila Bay had so far found no remains, four days after the ship caught fire shortly after leaving Manila for the eastern and central islands.