After a boat capsized in the Amazon River, at least 13 people drowned, but rescuers are trying to find more survivors.
An overcrowded boat capsized on a tributary near the mouth of the Amazon River on Friday, leading to several death. Divers were still searching the sunken boat to try to find a dozen people who were still missing. They were able to pick up 46 people who survived the incident, Reuters reports.
A majority of the passengers were sleeping in the hold of the boat when it capsized due to strong currents on a surve of the river. The river snakes through Marajó Island and leads to the port city of Belém which is the capital of the northern state of Para.
"We don't know how many people are missing because the captain doesn't know how many were on board," the head of the rescue operation, military police Sargent Orivaldo Santos, told Reuters.
The boat was only supposed to hold 25 people. The captain of the boat said that he believed there were more than 60 people on the boat for the duration of the 10-hour trip.
"The boat had more than 70 people aboard," Colonel Carlos Alberto Moreira Reis told AFP.
The currents were so strong on the Arari river that the boat wound up sinking more than a mile away from where it capsized.
The passengers on the boat were trying to get to the market in Belém so they could sell items like their fruit, açaí and shrimp and to pick up supplies.
At least six divers, two helicopters and another boat are on the scene trying to find more survivors.
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