ScubaLouie

[iroc4life]

A boat carrying foreign scuba divers sunk off Phuket province on Monday, six of them are still missing.

A Navy base in Phuket was alerted at about 1.30pm by a tour operator that its boat carrying 31 scuba divers failed to arrive at the Thachalong port at 2am as scheduled.

The company then sent a team to check the whereabouts of Chok Somboon 19 boat. The team then found 25 divers drifting on the sea. They were rescued and sent to a hospital.

However six divers were still missing.  http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phang-nga-storm-sinks-dive-boat-six-missing/

Hope they find the rest of the divers...

[frankc420]

Man that sucks!  I would hate to be in a situation like that.

[delsol]

12 hours seems like a long time to wait to report a missing dive boat, at least to me.

[iroc4life]

PHUKET: -- The Phuket branch of the Department of Disaster Prevention & Mitigation (DDPM-Phuket) confirmed this afternoon that the bodies of four more victims from the dive boat Choke Somboon 19 have been discovered inside the sunken vessel.

Deep sea divers have been working with Marine Police since first light this morning to reach the sunken vessel, which lies 70 meters below the surface, to confirm that it is in fact the same vessel that capsized during a freak storm on Sunday night.

The Choke Somboon 19 was carrying 30 people, 23 of whom were rescued on Monday, leaving seven people missing.

The Gazette was told that the four victims were discovered at 3.30pm in two separate sleeping quarters – two bodies in each cabin – and have been identified by Marine Police as Swiss nationals Mr Klaus Konradder and Ms Monika Schuster, and Austrian nationals Ms Sibylle Bucher and Mr Rolf Niederberge.

The body of Austrian national Gabrielle Jetzinger was found yesterday, floating in the area where the vessel sank, leaving Thai national Ms Jumpa “Gen” Sorntat – the boat’s cook and Japanese national Mr Yuba Hirotsuga still unaccounted for.

-- Phuket Gazette 2009-03-11