VATICAN CITY (UCAN) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed for those who died after a ferry carrying more than 700 people capsized in the central Philippines while Typhoon Fengshen battered the region.

"With deep emotion, I learned this morning of the shipwreck in the Philippine archipelago," the pope told thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, June 22, after reciting the noon Angelus with them on a day when the local temperature rose into the upper 30s on the Celsius scale.

"While I assure my spiritual closeness to the populations of the islands struck by the typhoon, I raise a special prayer to the Lord for the victims of this new tragedy of the sea, in which it seems many children were also involved," the 81-year-old pope said.

According to media reports, the typhoon lashed the central Philippines for about four hours on June 21, setting off landslides and floods, submerging entire communities, knocking out power and blowing off roofs of houses and other buildings.

Some reports quoted Senator Richard Gordon, head of the Filipino Red Cross, as saying the catastrophe left at least 155 people dead.

However, those numbers do not include the 740 passengers and crew aboard the ferry, the MV Princess of Stars, to which the pope referred to in his prayers. The ferry initially ran aground a few kilometers off Sibuyan Island, Romblon province, and then capsized. Less than 40 survivors had been reported rescued as of June 23 afternoon.

Ferries are the main form of transport between islands in the Philippines. The world's worst peacetime shipping disaster on record occurred in 1987, when a ferry collided with an oil tanker off the central Philippine island of Mindoro and sank, killing more than 4,000 people.
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