MANILA, Philippines -- A ship with 1,400 passengers on board and a tanker carrying seven people collided and sank Sunday night, and rescue ships and planes rushed to the site of the accident, Coast Guard and shipping officials said Monday.
Twenty-four people were rescued before dawn by the passing ship Don Claudio, but the fate of the other passengers was not known, a spokesman for Sulpicio Lines in Manila said.
'It is possible that many were killed because of the impact of the collision and because it occurred at night,' said Philippine Coast Guard Cmdr. Cipriano Luspo.
'Very likely there was panic, but we are hoping that many would survive because many commercial ships have responded.'
Luspo said 1,400 passengers were on board the Dona Paz, a combined cargo and passenger vessel, and another seven people were on the 629-gross-ton tanker, the MV Victor.
Both ships sank after they collided at about 10 p.m. Sunday near the island of Marinduque, the spokesman for Sulpicio said.
Two navy vessels, a coast guard ship and a navy airplane were dispatched to the scene, about 100 miles southeast of Manila in the north-central Philippines, Luspo said.
Sulpicio Lines manager Eusebio Go said the Dona Paz had been on a voyage to Manila from Tacloban on the central Philippines island of Leyte.
In addition to official efforts, he said four commercial ships were in the area trying to rescue passengers.
In one of the greatest maritime disasters in history, 1,503 people were killed on the night of April 14, 1912, when the British White Star liner Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage 95 miles south of New Foundland.
Nearly 400 people were reported missing or killed in a collision between two Soviet ships Aug. 31, 1986, in the Black Sea.
A passenger liner, the 17,053-ton Admiral Nakimov with 1,234 people aboard, collided with the 32,000-ton bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev 8 miles off the port of Novorossysk. Officials said 79 people were killed, 319 were considered missing and 836 were rescued.