World Notes DISASTERS

Two huge floating cranes edged next to the exposed hull of the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise, while salvage experts scampered along rails and divers plunged into the frigid oil-fouled waters in search of corpses. The vessel, which overturned just outside the harbor of Zeebrugge, Belgium, has become a rusting tomb for the unrecovered bodies of more than half the 134 passengers and crew who drowned in one of Britain's worst peacetime disasters in this century.

Miraculously, 409 of the 543 passengers bound for Dover from Zeebrugge were saved. As several investigations into the still mysterious causes of the disaster got under way, Britain's Prince Charles toured the scene and thanked Belgian authorities for the remarkably well-organized rescue efforts that saved so many lives. Said he: "Without that, I think it would have been a much worse tragedy."

A memorial service for the dead was held in a red brick Zeebrugge church. A few hundred yards away, in a nearby community sports hall, sorrowful relatives and friends filed past 55 bodies in an attempt to identify loved ones pulled from the ship. Most of the victims seemed to be British. At week's end 79 passengers were still missing. The salvage operations will eventually refloat the once luxurious ferry that now rests less than a mile from its berth.