PHILIPPINE FERRY SURVIVOR FOUND AT SEA

PHILIPPINE FERRY SURVIVOR DRIFTED
FOR 30 HOURS IN CHOPPY SEAS WAS RESCUED

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine air force helicopter plucked to safety Monday a woman who drifted for about 30 hours in choppy seas after the sinking of a ferry that left nine dead. Only one of the nearly 1,000 people who were on board is now unaccounted for. Housewife Lita Casumlum, 39, was found bobbing with a life jacket about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from where the 7,269-ton Superferry 9 sank on Sunday. Although she was weak and could hardly speak due to a sore throat, Casumlum was upbeat and joked with reporters in a military hospital in southern Zamboanga city, telling them she had lost money at sea but found two small crabs in her pocket after her rescue. "I just prayed. I thought of my family," she said.
Rear Admiral Alex Pama, who helped supervise the rescue, called it "a miracle." "She has been drifting amid huge waves for a long time without any food or water," Pama said.

A massive air, land and sea search will continue for the lone missing passenger, and a special coast guard ship has been deployed to check signs of an oil spill, officials said. Coast guard chief Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said an investigation will begin later this week to find out why the vessel — its power flickering on and off — sank off the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte province. Superferry 9 had set sail from General Santos in the south on Saturday and was headed to Iloilo city in the central Philippines. Capt. Jose Yap, who was among the survivors, issued the "abandon ship" order at 4:40 a.m. (2040GMT) after the ferry started listing. The vessel, built in 1986 in Japan, sank six hours later, the coast guard said. As panic ensued, passengers leapt into the dark sea and parents dropped children into life rafts bobbing in the choppy sea, according to witnesses.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is omnipotent, and if He wants to kill someone, no one can save that person. Similarly, if He wants to save someone, no one can kill him.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"Krishna Book - Chapter 72 - The Liberation of King Jarāsandha"

Everyone who is conditioned by material existence — whether he be a man or beast or demigod or bird — must suffer from ādhyātmika (bodily or mental) pains, ādhibhautika pains (those offered by living creatures), and ādhidaivika pains (those due to supernatural disturbances). His happiness is nothing but a hard struggle to get free from the miseries of conditional life. But there is only one way he can be rescued, and that is by accepting the shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:

"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 3 - Chapter 5 - Verse 40"