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Stuff.co.nz By REBECCA TODD - The Press Last updated 05:00 02/01/10

SURVIVOR: Teibi Tearikua, 19, survived by swimming six hours to shore after a ferry capsized in Kiribati in July. The rescue effort was delayed and chaotic.

A decision to swim rather than cling to a capsized ferry was probably the difference between life and death for Kiribati teenager Teibi Tearikua.

The 19-year-old, who lives on North Tarawa, was going to visit his aunt on the neighbouring Maiana Atoll on Kiribati Independence Day, July 13 last year.

With more than 50 people on board, the Monday journey should have taken just six hours.

However, the ferry was not seen again for four days.

Just 17 people were clinging to its overturned hull when fishermen came across the stricken vessel on Thursday, July 16.

The tragedy went almost unnoticed in the rest of the Pacific.

However, many questions remain, particularly why New Zealand and Australian authorities were not alerted to the disaster for several days.

Months later, in bare feet and a tattered T-shirt, Tearikua recalls the ferry being heavily loaded with cargo and passengers.

After turning to pick up a man who had fallen overboard, it started to list.

The captain ordered everyone to sit on one side to try and balance the vessel, but it flipped.

After making it to the surface, Tearikua could hear people screaming and crying.

Some young men set off to swim to shore, which they could just see.

Once Tearikua got hold of a lifejacket, which had been packed under cargo, he also decided to swim.

His journey took six exhausting hours.

"I didn't know if I would die or survive, but I just tried to swim," he said.

"I was not feeling tired when I swam, but when I reached the shore, after an hour something happened and I felt unable to move."

The teenager, who passed out on a road, was eventually found by a motorcyclist.

Tearikua believed those left clinging to the vessel would survive after the swimmers told searchers where to find the stricken boat.

However, he said they did not listen.

"They didn't even go to the right place, they went another way, they didn't listen to where we said they were," Tearikua said.

"The boat was not good enough, it was old and the passengers were overloaded, so the people who own the boat hold responsibility.

"Sometimes I think about it and I'm sad.

"I think why did I survive while others died?"

Neither New Zealand nor Australian representatives in Kiribati were told of the tragedy until a chance discovery late on Wednesday – days after it capsized.

They then sent planes and other resources to join the search.

Of the 15 bodies plucked from the ocean, most were bloated beyond recognition and many were missing limbs from shark attacks.

A further 16 people are still missing.

The New Zealand High Commissioner in Kiribati, Robert Kaiwai, said the last survivors were picked up on Thursday afternoon.

He took out the high commission's boat on Friday morning to continue the search, but stormy weather meant visibility was down to just two to three metres.

An Orion arrived from New Zealand about noon and continued to search, dropping flares near bodies and debris for the boat to pick up.

"It was a gruesome sight," Kaiwai said.

"Especially the sight of a child about one-year-old lying face down in the water with one leg and part of an arm missing.

"It all seemed so needless and not something I will ever forget."

New Zealand police assistant commissioner, international service group, Jon White had flown in to Kiribati on a Hercules the day after the accident, along with Foreign Minister Murray McCully, on a scheduled visit.

Survivors reported seeing the plane fly overhead when it left the region.

White said he was concerned the New Zealand delegation was not told of the tragedy until "very late in the piece".

He is distressed at the thought of survivors seeing the Kiwi aircraft.

"The previous night we were hosted at a dinner by the Government and it would seem at the same time that we were all dining, people were in fact in the water drowning and we weren't aware," he said.

"We felt we could have done more if we had known earlier."

White said it was this experience that led to New Zealand police sending a police adviser to Kiribati to help with such issues as emergency response.

Lower Hutt area commander Richard Chambers arrived in November.

He will return again in the near future.

Fishing boats regularly go missing around Kiribati's atolls, but this was the nation's first ferry disaster.

A police inquiry has been completed and the solicitor-general will decide whether anyone will face prosecution over the tragedy.

The ferry did not have a seaworthiness certificate and was missing vital equipment, such as a beacon.

It was believed there were at least 53 passengers and crew on board, when the official limit was 45.

Some of the survivors are seeking government compensation.

Kiribati President Anote Tong ordered a commission of inquiry into the tragedy.

A counsel assistant to the commission of inquiry, Tumai Timeon, sat through 13 harrowing days of testimony.

Much anger has been directed at the church mission that owned the boat and the Ministry of Maritime for its failed search, she said.

The young Kiribati lawyer was left fighting back tears as she listened to the survivors' stories.

One that stuck in her mind was that of a young woman, who had been holding her dead baby in her arms for hours.

The woman was filled with regret that just a few hours before they were rescued, she had decided to let her child's body float away, Timeon said.

There were also remarkable tales of survival, such as the two-year-old boy who was being taken to Maiana with his new adoptive parents.

The parents became delusional and left him in the care of a teenager while they swam away to "buy sugar".

The boy placed the child in a bucket and held it above the water, spitting into the youngster's mouth to prevent dehydration.

Miraculously, the boy survived and the teenager has taken on the role of uncle.

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