Ashika horror

The inquiry into the sinking of the Princess Ashika ferry off Tonga has heard how trapped women and children were piled on top of each other, struggling hopelessly to save themselves.

A steward on board the vessel, Uokalani Tau'ataina, 25, has given a harrowing account of the 5 August tragedy, which killed 74 people.

Tau'ataina was on the bridge watch as Princess Ashika went down because the captain was sleeping and the first mate was sick, he said.

As the vessel listed sharply, the captain came on to the bridge and told Tau'ataina to go down to the passenger deck and get the passengers to a muster station.

"I called out to the people, to the passengers in the passenger cabin and I called out for them to come outside," he told the hearing.

"Only a few seconds after that that I noticed the water coming up to where I was standing and I felt something like an electric shock and lights were going on and off. I saw passengers in the passenger accommodation holding on to the seats.

"A lot of noise, people crying inside the passenger accommodation. And I saw water coming up to where I was standing. It was then that I ran back upstairs because I knew at that instant that the vessel is going to sink."

The people he saw inside were women and children. None of them had lifejackets.

"I saw passengers, mostly women.... they were looking out the window and shaking their heads, probably wondering what was happening. I didn't hear what they were saying.

"They were holding on to their babies, their children."

Asked if he saw passengers, more than 50, stacked on each other, he said yes, and agreed they were mainly women and children.

"No hope for them and us and me. I was thinking, probably thinking the same as the passengers in the passenger cabin, that probably there was no hope for myself as well."

The hearing continues.

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