British Columbia ferry strikes rock, sinks

HARTLEY BAY, B.C. – In fishing boats and speedboats, the people of this small Indian village headed into the stormy waters off British Columbia’s north coast to help rescue 101 passengers and crew from a large British Columbia ferry that hit a rock and sank early Wednesday.

David Hahn, the president of B.C. Ferries, called the orderly rescue from the ferry’s lifeboats, and the fact that no one was seriously hurt, miraculous.

“Anytime you have a major incident and you have no one hurt or killed in this type of thing, I think you always think it’s a miracle,” Hahn said.

Canadian coast guard spokesman Dan Bate said the southbound Queen of the North hit the rock without warning at 12:26 a.m. off Gil Island in Wright Sound, about 6 1/2 miles southeast of Hartley Bay. The area is about 80 miles south of Prince Rupert and about 580 miles northwest of Seattle.

Passengers and crew aboard the 409-foot ship began boarding life rafts less than half an hour later, then were taken aboard local boats and the Canadian icebreaker Sir Wilfred Laurier with no reports of significant injury or other physical distress, Bate said.

Weather at the time was reported to be 45-mph winds with choppy seas.

The ferry, part of the province’s extensive marine transport service, had left Prince Rupert at 8 p.m. for the overnight run to Port Hardy at the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

Nicole Robinson, a receptionist at the cultural center in this Gitk’a’ata Tribe town of about 200 residents, said many of those who arrived from the ferry were stunned, and a few were treated for slight injuries.

Some ferry passengers with minor injuries were flown by helicopter from Hartley Bay to Prince Rupert, said Hartley Bay resident Wally Bolton, who was helping the rescued at the cultural center. He said he was aware of one person with a head injury.