The death toll from a capsized fishing boat off the country’s south coast increased to 10 Sunday, as several others remained unaccounted for, coast guard officials said.
The 9.77-ton boat Dolphin was found at around 6:25 a.m. near Chuja Island, north of the southern resort island of Jeju, according to the coast guard. The boat lost contact around 7:38 p.m. Saturday, about half an hour after it left Chuja for Haenam, South Jeolla Province.
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Three people have been rescued and flown by helicopter to a hospital in Jeju.
“Of the 22 people on the list of people on board, 13 were confirmed to have been aboard, four were confirmed not to have boarded, while one of the survivors was not on the list,” Lee Pyung-hyun, chief of the Jeju coast guard, said during a press briefing.
The exact number of people aboard the boat has yet to be determined, he said. No additional survivors or casualties were found inside the vessel.
Eight naval vessels, a Lynx helicopter and a P-3C maritime patrol aircraft have been dispatched to the site of the accident, according to a Navy official. In total, more than 50 naval and coast guard vessels have been mobilized in the search and rescue operations.
“We are carrying out search operations in a large circle around Seomsaengi Island, where the survivors were found,” said a coast guard official, referring to an inhabited island south of Chuja.
“Weather conditions are good, so the search is gaining momentum.”
President Park Geun-hye ordered Public Safety and Security Minister Park In-yong to “do everything possible for the search and rescue of the missing,” according to Cheong Wa Dae. Park has been briefed on the accident since Saturday night, it said.
She also ordered the minister to provide exact information on the accident and the search operations to the families of those missing, relevant authorities as well as the general public.
One of the survivors, surnamed Park, said the boat capsized “in an instant” due to rolling waves.
“I was sleeping when the boat’s engine went off and the captain told us to get out and water started to fill the boat,” the 38-year-old said at the hospital. “I was the last to come outside and as soon as I did, the boat capsized.”
Park and the other survivors climbed on top of the capsized boat and held on for more than 10 hours as they waited to be rescued.
Other passengers were initially with them, but they later disappeared from view after apparently falling off due to the strong waves, Park said.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries set up a control center at its headquarters in Sejong to oversee the rescue operations. (Yonhap)
