Tonga finds closure as ferry hope fades

Last updated 05:00 21/08/2009

Relevant offers

South Pacific

Bainimarama takes swipe at NZ Cyclone Jasmine flooding Tonga Tonga declares cyclone warning Two cyclones growing in Pacific PNG ferry survivors 'call from island' PNG ferry survivors battled to stay alive 126 missing, 246 saved after PNG ferry sinks

Turmoil in Tonga over 'two-faced' McCully comment 7.1 earthquake shakes Vanuatu New Fiji storms kill man

A Christchurch woman's three family members, who died when a Tongan ferry sank, have been remembered.

About 500 people attended the memorial service in Tonga for the mother, youngest brother and youngest sister of Elisapeta Tahahau Ofa, who has lived in Christchurch for 20 years.

Ofa said that her family had finally accepted that the Princess Ashika, which sank two weeks ago, was not going to be recovered and the bodies would "not be coming home".

"It's a goodbye and a closure for us," she said.

The most difficult part was telling her father because it was his greatest wish to be able to lay his wife and children to rest near his home in Va'vau.

"It was hard to accept, but we had to look at the reality and we all know they are somewhere happier in heaven," Ofa said.

"It's best to leave it be just to leave them there and use the money wisely on the families as well as get a better ferry." She had not seen the ghostly images of the ferry released this week and did not want her father to see them.

It had been a difficult time in Tonga, starting when she got off the plane and her mother was not there to greet her, as she had always done in the past.

"It's really hard coming here knowing I wouldn't see my mum and brother and sister," Ofa said.

Authorities have put the death toll at 73.

The 36-year-old Princess Ashika sank on August 5, 86 kilometres northeast of the the capital, Nuku'alofa.

The cost of retrieving the vessel has been put at $25 million, more than double New Zealand's total annual aid to Tonga.

Ad Feedback

- © Fairfax NZ News