TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Five Japanese divers rescued, two others located
Five of seven Japanese divers who went missing during a dive in Blue Corner (also known as Blue Point) off Nusa Lembongan were found alive Monday
Change Size
Five of seven Japanese divers who went missing during a dive in Blue Corner (also known as Blue Point) off Nusa Lembongan were found alive Monday.
The five divers found alive are Furukawa Saori, 37, Yamamoto Emi, 33, Tomita Namomi (reported yesterday as Kawasaki Namomi ' her maiden name), 28, Morizono Aya, 27, and Yoshidome Atsumi, 29.
The survivors were first found by a local woman, Rini, at 3:52 p.m., around 300 meters from Manta Point, one of the dive spots at Nusa Penida Island, located between 14 to 16 nautical miles from Blue Corner, where the women had vanished Friday.
Meanwhile, two divers, Miyata Ritsuko and Takashi Shoko, are still missing, although as of 10 p.m. Monday, Nusa Penida Police chief Comr. Nyoman Suarsika revealed that local fishermen had reported spotting the two near Batu Bolong off Nusa Penida. Both were reportedly still alive.
'The locals had tried to evacuate them using jukung outriggers but their effort failed,' he said.
The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) faced obstacles evacuating the victims as they were on a rock at the bottom of a 70-meter high cliff.
Furukawa was finally evacuated by helicopter at 6:04 p.m. and landed at 6:21 p.m. at Ngurah Rai International Airport. Furukawa, who is a dive master working for Yellow Scuba, was immediately taken to Kasih Ibu General Hospital, Kedonganan, for treatment.
Furukawa was conscious when found and could walk from the helicopter to the car that took her to the hospital. However, she had several injuries.
On Monday, at 8:30 p.m., the boat evacuating the four other victims reached Semawang Beach in Sanur. The four were immediately taken to Sanglah Hospital, where it was reported they were conscious but suffering from hypothermia.
Suarsika said that Batu Bolong was close to Manta Point, where the other five divers were found. However, he pointed out the terrain at Batu Bolong was more extreme, with vertical cliffs reaching 150 meters in height, a fact that would make it very dangerous to carry out an evacuation with simple equipment.
'We will continue the search for the other two victims on Tuesday,' Basarnas Denpasar head, Didi Hamzar, said at a press conference on Monday evening.
It was earlier reported that the seven Japanese divers had vanished Friday while diving off Nusa Lembongan, one of three small islets off Bali's southeast coast known collectively as Nusa Penida.
The search and rescue team involved members of Basarnas, local police and military personnel, fishermen, as well as one helicopter and an additional search boat from the Basarnas local office on neighboring Lombok Island. The search on Saturday and Sunday had failed to locate the missing divers.
