(Updates with new death toll, survivors)

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - At least 17 people, mostly women and children, were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo when a passenger ferry sank on Lake Tanganyika, but around 120 people survived, a senior official said on Wednesday.

A large number of survivors swam ashore or were rescued after the sinking, which occurred on Friday when the vessel hit a rock five km (three miles) south of the lake town of Kalemie.

Kalemie is located on Congo's far eastern Lake Tanganyika border with Tanzania and it took several days for details of the accident to reach the capital Kinshasa in the west.

"There are 17 dead, that is the figure that was given to us by local authorities. Most were women and children," the Vice Governor of southeast Katanga Province, Yav Tshibal, said.

Speaking by phone to Reuters during a visit to the area of the accident, he said around 120 people had survived.

This contradicted initial foreign media reports which had said around 100 people were feared dead in the sinking.

Tshibal said the death toll was still provisional, but he added: "Given the number of survivors, if there are still missing people, there won't be a great number".

Earlier, Francois Xavier Kafimbo of Congo's maritime inspection agency said the accident occurred after the ferry approached the lake shore to pick up more passengers.

"The lake was calm, but the captain didn't take precautions before putting ashore ... He hit a rock and that's what sank it," he told Reuters from Kalemie, adding that the boat went down 200 metres (600 feet) from the shore.

The passenger manifest listed 58 people on board the vessel, which was travelling to Moba, 130 km (80 miles) south of Kalemie.

River boats and lake ferries in Congo are routinely overloaded with unregistered passengers and goods, safety regulations go largely unenforced and accidents are frequent.

Congo, a vast former Belgian colony in central Africa which is still struggling to recover from a devastating 1998-2003 war, has few good roads and people often choose to travel on lakes and rivers in canoes and ferries. (Reporting by Joe Bavier; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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