Photo: NOAA Typhoon is a strong tropical revolving storm of force 12 or higher in the southern hemisphere. Typhoons revolve in a counterclockwise direction. In the northern hemisphere these storms revolve clockwise and are known as hurricanes. image:32887:3::0

On Thursday rescue divers continued to search for passengers and crew of the overturned ferry but failed to retrieve and new survivors and that has raised the possibility that as many as 809 of the 865 passengers and crew had perished in the disaster.

Only 56 survivors have been found since the ship capsized on Saturday. The Philippine coast guard said that 124 bodies had ether washed ashore on nearby islands or had been floating in the sea. The ship capsized near the island of Sibuyan.

Footage was shown on television and it showed footage of corpses being dumped from a truck into mass graves. Most of the bodies were not examined by forensic experts for possible identification.

Narrow passageways were blocked by debris and that made it difficult for divers to pull corpses from inside the ship. Officials say that the retrieval efforts could last a month.

The Typhoon affected more than 2.4 million Filipinos in 42 of the country's 81 provinces and according to The National Disaster Coordinating Council estimated damage to property at more than $125 million.

The coast guard's Board of Marine Inquiry said that it has initiated an investigation into the ferry disaster.

Sulpico lines' lawyers stopped short of blaming the coast guard for the tragedy but coast guard officials say that it was the company's fault.

On Wednesday President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that the company should be accountable for the tragedy.