At least five people have died but more than 800 passengers have been rescued from a ferry that sank in the southern Philippines.

Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo, a coast guard chief, said on Sunday that most of the 847 passengers and 117 crew members on board the Superferry 9 were transferred to two nearby commercial ships about five hours after the ferry began to list.

Gilbert Teodoro, the Philippine defence minister, said two men and a child drowned.

The bodies of two other passengers were later plucked from the sea by fishermen, the coast guard said.

The guard said that three passengers were injured.

Authorities said earlier that some people had jumped into the water in panic before dawn as the vessel began to tilt to the right.

The ship sank about six nautical miles off the west coast of Zamboanga peninsula on Mindanao island, Teodoro said.

Scores 'unaccounted'

Navy ships were deployed and air force helicopters were helping in the rescue.

The ship left the southern city of General Santos on Saturday and was scheduled to arrive in Iloilo city in the central Philippines on Sunday.

The ferry apparently ran into some problems midway and began to list, according to Jess Supan, vice-president of the Aboitiz Transport System, the ferry owner.

Commodore Rudy Isorena, a regional coastguard chief, said the cause of the accident was not yet clear and the weather in the area had not been too bad.

"We cannot say yet as to the cause as the attention right now is being given to the search and rescue of passengers," he said.

The weather was generally fair in the Zamboanga peninsula region, about 860km south of Manila, although a tropical storm was reported in the country's mountainous north, the coast guard said.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of tropical storms, badly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations.

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