New Delhi, July 19 -- the MV Barima, a government ferry carrying 116 people on the overnight route between Georgetown and Port Kaituma, had capsized near Iron Punt in the dark hours of the Pomeroon coast. By daylight, 53 people had been pulled from the water. Sixty-three remained unaccounted.

250 life jackets were aboard, along with eight lifeboats. Whether all that equipment was accessible to passengers in the moments before the ferry capsized was among the first questions facing investigators when the sun rose.

Coast guard assets and a number of private vessels responded to the distress signal and spread across the search zone around Iron Punt, a stretch of open river roughly 40 kilometers northwest of Georgetown where currents run st...