Davao City: Thirteen people were missing after a passenger boat sank in large waves off a southern Philippine island, a police report said on Friday.

One passenger was able to swim to safety after the accident on Wednesday off the coast of Davao del Sur province, 990 km south of Manila.

The police report said large waves caused the boat to overturn.

The Coast Guard and the maritime police have dispatched rescue teams to scour the area, but so far, no other survivors or bodies have been found.

Sea travel is a major mode of transportation in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands.

The country was the site of the world's worst peacetime shipping disaster in 1987 when more than 4,000 people perished in a collision between a passenger ferry and an oil tanker just before Christmas.

Source : IANS