NASSAU, Bahamas (AP):
WEEPING ISLANDERS went house to house Tuesday in the tiny islands of Bimini to grieve for 11 of their own who died in the crash of a seaplane near Miami.
News of Monday's crash that killed all 20 people aboard the plane jolted sleepy North and South Bimini - islands in the Gulf Stream which are popular among deep sea fishermen and scuba divers.
"Everybody lost somebody _ most of us are related," said Terez Rolle, whose sister-in-law, Sofia Hinsley Sherman, died with her one-year-old baby girl in Monday's crash.
Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie sent his "deepest condolences" to the 1,600 residents of Bimini, which form part of the Bahamas.
"Resources of the government are to be committed to finding out what went wrong and to assisting Bahamian families in their time of bereavement," Christie said.
U.S. investigators tried to determine why the Chalk's Ocean Airways seaplane broke apart and plunged into the ocean just off Miami Beach.
SOLIDARITY
In a show of solidarity, Bahamas Minister of Transport Glennis Martin and Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchombe travelled to Bimini from Nassau, the capital, and personally visited homes to express their sympathies.
"It's a day of mourning for Bimini. There is not one house, not one family that has been untouched by this tragedy," Lloyd Edgecombe, a real estate agent and local government council member, told The Associated Press.
"Last night we went from house to house, crying and praying," Edgecombe said, adding that people were also weeping in small groups on the streets.
Bimini, which author Ernest Hemingway visited for sportfishing, in bygone days was a hangout for buccaneers and Prohibition-era rumrunners. Surrounded by the aquamarine waters of the Gulf Stream, even today it is somewhat isolated.
There is only one cash machine on the north island _ at the Big Game Fishing Club.
Islanders are used to flying to Miami, some 50 miles (80 kilometres) away, aboard the seaplanes. Chalk's Airways has been flying to Bimini since the airline was founded in 1919. Some of the 11 Bimini residents aboard the plane were returning from Christmas shopping.
"We always felt so safe on Chalk's," said Nadia Rolle, administrative assistant at the Bimini Tourism Office. "It was a seaplane. It could always touch down on the water, we said. It was a bizarre accident."
Rolle and Edgecombe said they doubted terrorism caused the crash of the twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard, which was built in 1947.
"The planes were very old. I think the plane was overworked," Edgecombe said.
Patricia Saunders, a government clerk, lost her best friend, Sophia Sherman, who worked at the phone company in Bimini.
"The island is depressed. Spirits are down," Saunders said. "We don't know how we're going to get through the holidays."
