Two clear days after scores of people drowned on the Volta Lake, the officials of the Ghana Maritime Authority and the Ghana Navy are yet to arrive at the accident scene. Sene District Chief Executive Dominic Napari told Joy News two bodies have since been retrieved with 16 others feared trapped and dead in the lake. With the absence of the Navy and the officials of Maritime Authority, the residents have been on a rescue mission, diving, in a desperate effort to save lives and to retrieve bodies, the DCE confirmed. “The rescue workers are young men from the nearby communities and some of the boat owners are also around doing the rescuing. “As to the equipment, obviously it is just the men diving into the water to rescue them,” he said. He said the Navy is located at Kete-Krachie and must travel “five or six hours” to get to the scene of the accident. His latest revelation of 18 deaths may still be unconfirmed but contradicts earlier reports of 35 deaths. Asked how he arrived at the latest number of casualties, Napari said the families of the 18 people reported their relatives missing. “Majority of the people who cannot be found now are children between the ages of 6 months and six years,” he said. 93 people were said to be on the overloaded boat before it capsized, Tuesday. Survivors attribute the accident to tree stumps in the lake. The head of the Maritime Authority, Peter Azuma said efforts have been made in the rescue mission with officials stationed at some of the areas closer to accident scene dispatched to the accident scene. According to him, his outfit is constrained with serious challenges but is doing its very best under the circumstance. He was impressed however that since the institution of the Authority, the spate of accidents on the lake have reduced substantially. “For some now we haven’t had accidents on the lake because of the effective measures and the efforts that the authority has put in place. There used to be times that nearly every year there were two or three accidents on the lake. For almost four or five years now, that has been a thing of the past,” he said.