A personal story of tragedy from the Rabaul Queen disaster

AN INCOMPLETE JOURNEY
By: Alexander Nara 
It was not just an ordinary Christmas holidays for Belinda John Kembu when she came to Kimbe three weeks ago to be with her parents and small ones.
It was a visit that any 28 year old young girl would have taken while in the process to inform parents and family members about the one who wish to take their hand in marriage.
Miss Kembu travelled to Kimbe purposely to seek her family’s approval and blessings about one special person in her life that had vowed to change her surname and to be her life partner.
During those special three weeks when Belinda was in Kimbe, that young man waited somewhere in the big city of Lae, patiently, nervous and heart pumping.
Waiting for an incoming call, the call that Belinda’s name and number would appear on his mobile screen and the sweet soft voice he knew very well would then announce the long awaited fate of their very intimate and long relationship
Belinda’s Father Pr John Kembu emotionally related between hard breathing and speechless minutes that he gave his full blessings to his daughter and urged her to join hands with her fiancée
Amid the heavy downpours and strong winds on that Tuesday afternoon before the tragedy, Belinda boarded MV Rabaul Queen with head held high, a smiling face and hopes burning as a lantern deep in her heart with the marriage blessings from her father securely tied around it to present to her soon to be husband.
Pr Kembu confirmed that he had asked Belinda to call back and inform them of the set time that she and her fiancée would be traveling back to Kimbe for their wedding.
The young man who was emotionally affected when asked to be interviewed refused to allow his name to be published for personal reasons but confirmed that it was on that Tuesday afternoon after  boarding the ship that Belinda called him.
“I will bring you to Kimbe sooner than you expect,” he recalled Miss Kembu telling her on the phone from the ship.
It was on Friday last week when the young man escorted Belinda’s body with her parents to Kimbe on the Seventh Day Adventist single engine plane from Lae that Belinda’s words became clear to him.
She had brought him to Kimbe sooner than he had expected.

More feared dead in ferry disaster

Officials now fear that there will be many more victims than first anticipated after last week’s ferry sinking because of lax ticketing procedures.
The mv Rabaul Queen sank in rough seas off Finschhafen near the end of a 20-hour journey from Kimbe to PNG’s second largest city, Lae.
Charlie Masange of the Morobe provincial disaster management office said the number of people rescued had been recalculated as 237.
He said new information from relatives of those onboard could well advance the number of people killed in the disaster.

 “And we found that about 179 could be unaccounted for meaning they did not purchase those tickets properly or in a right way, they might have just given the money to the ticket person and they just got on board the ship at Kimbe,” he said in a radio interview.

Masange said it was up to the ship’s captain to restrict the number of passengers to the 310 it was licensed to carry.
A church worker looking after survivors of last week’s ferry disaster said many of them were dealing with stomach pain after swallowing oily seawater.
Angela Worealevi of the Catholic Diocese in Lae said her centre was housing 66 survivors, 35 of whom were students.