By Ally Saleh
STONE TOWN, Zanzibar (Reuters) - A ferry with more than 280 people on board, including some foreigners, capsized and sank between the east African coast and the Zanzibar archipelago on Wednesday, killing at least 24 people, the government said.
Infrastructure Minister Hamad Masoud said 145 people had so far been rescued. "Twenty-four bodies have been recovered," he told Reuters by telephone.
The ferry, MV Skagit/Kalama, set sail from mainland Tanzania at around midday for Zanzibar, Tanzania's semi-autonomous archipelago and a popular tourist destination.
Rescue boats and divers were searching for any remaining survivors on the mostly submerged vessel.
"One foreigner, a woman, is among the dead. Thirteen other foreigners were rescued and are in hospital," government spokesman Yusuf Chunda said. It was not clear how many other foreigners had been on board.
Police said the vessel was carrying 250 adult passengers and 31 children when it capsized near Chumbe island, west of Zanzibar.
Zanzibar police spokesman Mohammed Mhina said by telephone that many passengers were missing but added "we don't know how many of them sank with the boat."
"The rescue operation is ongoing as we speak but almost the entire boat has been submerged in water ... only a small part of the boat is now visible."
Preliminary reports indicated the vessel had capsized after being hit by strong winds and waves, he said.
The ferry is owned by a company named Seagull, which also runs a number of other ferries. Previous reports had indicated the vessel was called MV Salama.
More than 200 people were killed when a crowded ferry sank in September off the coast of east Africa in the worst maritime disaster in the history of Zanzibar.
(Additional reporting by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala in Dar es Salaam; Editing by James Macharia, Yara Bayoumy and Tim Pearce)
